Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

SOUTH OF SCOTLAND ELECTRICITY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Considered; to be read the Third time Tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Egypt (Expenditure)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Defence the total sum that has been spent on the British armed forces and their equipment in Egypt since 1945.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Christopher Soames): I have been asked to reply.
Insufficient information is available to enable an assessment to be made of the total cost of maintaining British forces in Egypt since 1945. In 1954, when the forces were at a high level following the disturbances in the Canal Zone, the annual cost was estimated at about £55 million.

Mr. Hughes: Is it beyond the capacities of the electrical calculating machine at the Ministry of Defence to find out how much money has really been spent in Egypt? If that calculator cannot give the answer, can the hon. Gentleman tell me what the British taxpayer has got for this expenditure?

Mr. Soames: It is only in the last two or three years that the Services have in fact kept records and made detailed estimates on a per capita basis of every formation.

Oral Answers to Questions — GREECE (SANTORINI EARTHQUAKE)

Dr. Stross: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what assistance was given to the victims of the earthquake in the island of Santorini by British agencies.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord John Hope): On the day on which the earthquake occurred the Naval Attaché of Her Majesty's Embassy at Athens asked the Greek naval authorities whether any help was needed. He was later informed that no assistance from the Royal Navy was required. I understand that the British Red Cross, in response to a request which the Greek Red Cross made to the International Red Cross at Geneva, despatched supplies of anti-biotics for use in the relief of victims in the earthquake. I understand also that the Save the Children Fund, again in response to a request from the Greek Red Cross, immediately sent two members of its staff already in Athens, together with medical supplies, food and blankets, to the island.

Dr. Stross: So far as the Save the Children Fund is concerned, is not it fair to say that this is but one of the many examples of the splendid humanitarian work which it has been conducting in many parts of the world?

Lord John Hope: Yes, Sir. That is so.

Mr. Willey: Will the hon. Gentleman do his utmost to continue to assist the Save the Children Fund and work like this when the occasion arises?

Lord John Hope: indicated assent.

Oral Answers to Questions — ICELANDIC FISHERIES DISPUTE

Mr. Willey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will now make a statement on the Icelandic fisheries dispute.

Lord John Hope: I hope that we shall be able to bring to a successful conclusion the discussions begun under the auspices of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, which were suspended before the elections in Iceland.

Mr. Willey: While expressing gratitude for the renewal of that hope, may I ask the Minister to do his utmost to bring this protracted and unhappy dispute to an early conclusion? I think he will agree that it has continued for too long and caused a good deal of ill-feeling between the two countries.

Lord John Hope: Her Majesty's Government will do all that they can.

Mr. Younger: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us with whom the initiative now lies? He talked about the talks being suspended. By whom were they suspended, and by whom are they now to be renewed? Is this a matter for initiative on the part of the Government?

Lord John Hope: The Icelandic Government themselves have not yet had time to form an opinion on the matter. I would rather leave it at that at the moment.

Oral Answers to Questions — EGYPT

Canal Zone (British Subjects)

Major Wall: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many British citizens originally employed by the British forces in the Canal Zone have been assisted in leaving Egypt; how many have been employed by the base contractors; and how many are now unemployed.

Lord John Hope: I am advised that 76 British subjects originally employed by the British forces in the Canal Zone have been assisted to leave Egypt. Some further applications for such assistance are under consideration. Three hundred and thirty have been given employment by the contractors in the Canal Base. Seventy-six are known to be unemployed.

Major Wall: Will my hon. Friend undertake to keep his eye on the situation, because it may well be that these British subjects may be forced to choose between remaining unemployed and becoming Egyptian nationals?

Lord John Hope: Yes, Sir. We shall certainly watch the situation.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: Will the hon. Gentleman look into the case of some of these men, many of them Maltese, Cypriots and others, who have given loyal service to us for many years and who

are now left apparently completely abandoned? Will the hon. Gentleman have another look at the whole question?

Lord John Hope: Certainly, if the hon. Gentleman will give me details of what he is thinking of.

Egyptian Delta Light Railways (British Shareholders)

Mr. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action has been taken since March, 1955, to obtain redress for the British shareholders of the Egyptian Delta Light Railways; what has happened concerning the two lawsuits brought in 1954 on behalf of the company's debenture holders; and what communications he has had from the Egyptian Government following the report of the commission appointed by that Government on this matter.

Lord John Hope: Since the developments described in the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) on 7th November last year, Her Majesty's Embassy have on several occasions drawn the attention of the Egyptian authorities to the British interest both in the shares and the debentures of this company and have pressed for an early indication of the Egyptian Government's attitude. Last December, the Egyptian Minister of Communications informed the Embassy that he had submitted the whole question to the Egyptian legal authorities; and that after receiving their opinion, and the technical report on the railways for which he had called, he would make a recommendation. I understand that the court cases are still sub judice.

Mr. Teeling: Does my hon. Friend not feel that this is taking rather a long time, and can we be told now or at some future date if further pressure is to be put on the Egyptian Government on this matter? In the meantime, would it not be a good idea with regard to claims such as this if a register were now opened in this country to deal with the many claims against Egypt which are pending at the moment?

Lord John Hope: On that last point, perhaps my hon. Friend would put down a Question. Generally speaking, I cannot comment on those suggestions while these cases are sub judice, however unsatisfactory the position.

Suez Canal

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether he will refer the decision of Egypt to nationalise the Suez Canal to the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague;
(2) if he will seek the co-operation of the Soviet Government in dealing with the problem of the recent action of Egypt on the Suez Canal;
(3) if he will give the exact terms which the Egyptian Government have communicated to him regarding compensation for Suez Canal shares.

Mr. Warbey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) what were the specific changes in Egyptian political and economic policy which took place between February and July of this year and which led the Government to withdraw its offer of financial help for the Aswan Dam project;
(2) what offer of compensation has been received from the Egyptian Government for the British Government's shares in the Suez Canal Company.

Mr. Zilliacus: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of the latest action of the Egyptian Government in relation to the Suez Canal, whether he will give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government are prepared to co-operate with the other permanent members of the Security Council represented at the Summit Conference in Geneva last July, in order to bring about a settlement through the United Nations of all outstanding issues in the Middle East.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what further information he has received from Egypt on the Suez Canal dispute.

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what preparations Her Majesty's Government made in June of this year against the seizure of the Suez Canal, in view of the fact that it was officially stated by Mr. Burhansaid, the Egyptian director of the Canal Company, on 4th June, that the Egyptian Government already had in being plans to take over the canal.

Lord John Hope: My right hon. and learned Friend is engaged this afternoon in conversations with the United States Secretary o f State and the French

Foreign Minister. There is also, as the House knows, to be a debate on the Suez Canal tomorrow. I would therefore ask those hon. Members who have put down these Questions not to press me for answers today.

Mr. Davies: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for his Answer and realising that this House of Commons has a grave responsibility at this juncture in trying to find a peaceful solution, may I ask the Minister if he is aware that there will be millions of people of different political points of view in this country who deprecate the irresponsible leading article, for instance, in the Daily Express today which is—

Mr. Speaker: The Minister is not responsible for the leader in the Daily Express.

Mr. Davies: I am fully aware of that fact, Mr. Speaker, and I merely want to ask the Minister if he will assure the House that the Government will try every international avenue to solve this problem in discussion and legally, because it is far better for a few statesmen to get ulcers than for young men to get shot?

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: There is to be a debate tomorrow, and I think that the House should go on with the other Questions.

Mr. Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not a rule of this House that Members are allowed to ask supplementary questions?

Mr. Speaker: It is not a rule. I generally try to permit it if I can. I hope that the House will agree with me that, in view of what the Minister has said, which is practically nothing, we should go on with Questions and wait until tomorrow to discuss this matter.

Mr. J. Hynd: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not generally the practice that hon. Members are entitled to ask Questions when a debate is anticipated in order to elicit information which may be of use to them during the debate?

Mr. Speaker: Yes, if the Minister has any information to give, but I gathered from the reply of the Joint Under-Secretary of State that he had no information to give. That is what I took to be the meaning of his answer.

Oral Answers to Questions — CUBA (BRITISH SUBJECT'S DEATH)

Mr. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is yet in a position to make a statement about compensation for Mr. J. E. Top-ham of Brighton, who was accidentally shot by a harbour guard in Cuba.

Lord John Hope: The Cuban authorities have now arranged for the guard who shot Mr. Topham to be tried by court martial. Her Majesty's Embassy have instructions to revert to the question of compensation after the outcome of the trial is known.

Mr. Teeling: Does my hon. Friend realise that his answer will greatly satisfy the family of my constituent, and does he not also feel that this is proof that the Cuban Government very definitely want to make quite sure that in such cases people are fairly treated?

Lord John Hope: I think that is so.

Oral Answers to Questions — CYPRUS

Discussions

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) when and by whom the last discussions were conducted with the Greek Government concerning Cyprus;
(2) when and by whom the recent discussions with the Turkish Government concerning Cyprus were conducted.

Lord John Hope: It is not the practice to disclose information of this sort about the conduct of diplomatic exchanges.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is not that a rather surprising reply in view of the fact that a good deal has been disclosed by the Prime Minister and various other right hon. Gentlemen? Are we to understand from the answer that, during the whole of the period between the visit of Field Marshal Sir John Harding to London and the final statement by the Prime Minister, and after a series of changes of Government policy, constant consultations are going on in Ankara and none whatever in Athens, because that is the inference that will be drawn from the answer?

Lord John Hope: The hon. Gentleman is not entitled to make that inference at all. I cannot give an answer to the Question as he asked it, as he knows very well.

Turkey (Guarantees)

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will invite the representatives of the United States of America, Greece and Turkey to a quadripartite conference with Great Britain to consider suitable guarantees to Turkey arising out of any implementation of the principle of self-determinantion in Cyprus.

Lord John Hope: Her Majesty's Government do not think that such a conference would be helpful at the present time.

Mr. Donnelly: If the Government do not think that, what do they think?

Lord John Hope: I have answered the hon. Gentleman's Question, and I have nothing more to say.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED NATIONS AGENCIES, (BRITISH PARTICIPATION)

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement regarding Her Majesty's Government's support of United Nations Agencies.

Mr. J. Hynd: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why a statement was made on 24th July at the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations concerning the possible withdrawal of Great Britain from any further participation in United Nations programmes and in the Specialised Agencies.

Lord John Hope: As I informed the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey) on 30th July, it remains the policy of Her Majesty's Government to support the valuable activities of the United Nations Agencies. No suggestion was made to the Economic and Social Council to the effect that the United Kingdom might withdraw from any further participation in future programmes.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his own speeches in Geneva have cast very great doubt on the sincerity of Her Majesty's Government in their support of United Nations work,


and while everyone is eager to cut out any dead wood, as we understand the hon. Gentleman has described it, would he make it clear that it is quite absurd to suggest that there is financial stress caused by the contributions to United Nations services, which only amount to a very small total in comparison, for example, with our arms and other expenditure?

Lord John Hope: I can only say in answer to the hon. Gentleman that the appeal that I made at Geneva was backed up by the Secretary-General and by many of the delegations. I do not think, if I may say so, that his reading of how the thing went is necessarily shared by other commentators, and, if I may, I should like to quote what was said by one of the correspondents. He said:
It may well prove that the plain language used today by Lord John Hope has rendered the organisation a signal service.
I hope that is so, and I ask hon. Members to support me in this effort.

Hon. Members: Which correspondent?

Lord John Hope: The Manchester Guardian.

Mr. J. Hynd: Will the hon. Gentleman quote what he himself said because, according to Press reports, he is reported as having threatened that unless certain changes were made the Government would have to consider the withdrawal of Britain from any further participation in the United Nations programme and in the Specialised Agencies? If that is not correct, will the Minister quote what he said?

Lord John Hope: I shall be delighted to do so, if the House will indulge me. I said:
I must therefore tell the Council quite frankly that if it is not possible by some means to achieve stabilisation, by which I mean if we are to be involved in ever-increasing financial contributions, Her Majesty's Government will be obliged seriously to consider whether the United Kingdom can continue to participate in the United Nations programmes and in the Specialised Agencies"—

An Hon. Member: Shame.

Lord John Hope: If the hon. Gentleman who shouts "shame" will allow me to conclude the quotation—
on the present basis,
he will see that the Question was beside the point.

Mr. Baldwin: Is my hon. Friend aware that many of us welcome the attitude of the Government and feel that a great deal of expense could be saved if a lot of dead wood were cut out, particularly with regard to the Food and Agriculture Organisation?

Mr. Younger: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us why he seems to have included in his definition of dead wood the proposal of the Secretary-General that there might be some kind of career service under international responsibility for working in the administration of underdeveloped territories? That was a subject he particularly referred to in his speech. Has he some grave doubts about the necessity of having some international service for assisting underdeveloped territories, and, if so, what are we to think about his enthusiasm for technical assistance?

Lord John Hope: There is a Question down on that point later.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the total annual financial contribution made in the year 1955–56 to the United Nations and to its Specialised Agencies.

Lord John Hope: The United Kingdom contribution to the United Nations and the Specialised Agencies is paid for the financial years of these organisations which correspond to the calendar year. The United Kingdom contribution to the United Nations for the calendar year 1956 is £1,261,000; the United Kingdom contributions to the Specialised Agencies total £1,327,000, making in all £2,588,000.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is that about 0·1 per cent. of our defence expenditure? Is the Joint Under-Secretary aware that the United Nations budget is more carefully vetted and controlled than any other budget in the world and that it is wholly devoted to purposes and policies which the General Assembly has debated and approved?

Lord John Hope: Yes, Sir, that should be so, but the Secretary-General agrees with us that the matter could be even more carefully looked into than it has been.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Do not the figures prove that this cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called a financial drain upon Her Majesty's Government?

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is the Joint Under-Secretary aware that too often the United Nations and its Agencies operate in a sense adverse to British interests, and that the greatest care should be exercised, as it is being exercised by Her Majesty's Government at present, to ensure that our contributions do not get out of hand?

Lord John Hope: Her Majesty's Government agree with the last injunction of my noble friend, but I must tell the House that the Government do, of course, support the ideals and objectives of the United Nations.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Has not the United Nations already helped to prevent war in the Middle East, in Kashmir and in other places where British interests have been very signally served? Is it not evident that, if the United Nations is to become an instrument for preserving world peace, its work, and, consequently its budget, must expand, and that a proposal to stabilise the budget can only be interpreted by other nations as the sort of thing Tory Governments used to do before the war—undermining the authority of a body by saying "We care nothing about it"?

Lord John Hope: As I have already told the House, Her Majesty's Government have most of the delegations in the Economic and Social Council behind them, and the Secretary-General is also behind us. So we must just bear as best we can the right hon. Gentleman's criticisms.

Oral Answers to Questions — NUCLEAR TESTS

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the recent official proposal by the Government of Canada with regard to nuclear tests, he will now state what arrangements have been made for the proposed discussions on the limitation of nuclear tests.

Lord John Hope: I am not aware of any such proposal.

Mr. Henderson: Is not the hon. Gentleman really evading the substance of the Question? Will he look at the latter part of the Question, which asks whether he

will now make a statement about the proposed discussions on the limitation of nuclear tests? Will he answer that part of the Question?

Lord John Hope: I have no statement to make on that subject from the premise of the right hon. Gentleman's own Question, where he talked about the Canadian proposals.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a further statement about the steps he proposes to take to secure the earliest possible agreement for the prohibition of the test explosions of thermo-nuclear weapons.

Lord John Hope: The question refers to the prohibition of nuclear tests. Her Majesty's Government stand by the Anglo-French proposals of 19th March, which provide for the prohibition of nuclear tests at an appropriate stage in a comprehensive disarmament plan.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Following up what the Prime Minister has already said to the House, will the Joint Under-Secretary represent to the Foreign Secretary that this is a matter of great urgency and that the total prohibition of thermo-nuclear tests might prevent the development of hydrogen warheads for guided missiles, which would be a major danger to this country?

Lord John Hope: I will certainly pass on to my right hon. Friend the observations of the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. A. Henderson: Have the Government completed their studies of the proposals recently put forward by Mr. Shepilov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, and are they proposing to enter into discussions with the Soviet Government on the basis of those proposals?

Lord John Hope: No formal proposal has been made to Her Majesty's Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — MIDDLE EAST

Mr. Hammarskjöld's Visit

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, following the recent visit of the United Nations Secretary-General to the Middle East, he will make a statement on the present situation on the borders of Israel and her Arab neighbours.

Lord John Hope: The Secretary-General of the United Nations recently visited the Middle East in continuation of his efforts to ensure full compliance with the armistice agreements between Israel and her Arab neighbours. He has not yet reported to the Security Council on this visit. On 26th July, however, he issued a statement with regard to incidents which took place on the Israel-Jordan demarcation line on 24th and 25th July. Her Majesty's Government associate themselves with Mr. Hammar-skjöld's expression of sympathy to the United Nations Observers who were seriously injured while on duty in the cause of peace, and with his strong appeal to those concerned to take all measures necessary for the maintenance of the cease-fire.

Supply of Arms

Sir R. Boothby: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the aggressive action taken by the Egyptian Government in respect of the Suez Canal, Her Majesty's Government will reconsider their decision not to allow the Government of Israel to purchase such arms as they consider necessary for the effective defence of Israel.

Lord John Hope: Her Majesty's Government's policy with regard to arms supplies to Middle East countries is based on the Tripartite Declaration of 1950 which relates to the Arab-Israel dispute. The nationalisation of the Suez Canal is not related to that dispute. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, see no reason to change their policy as regards the supply of arms to the Middle East as a whole.

Sir R. Boothby: Does my noble Friend really mean to tell us that, in the light of the present situation, Her Majesty's Government are going to make no change in their policy of refusing certain classes of modern arms to Israel, at Israel's own request—that they do not recognise any difference in the situation which has arisen in the last few days?

Lord John Hope: I have tried to tell my hon. Friend what the Government's policy is with regard to the Arab-Israel dispute, and upon that we stand at present.

Mr. Shinwell: Does the noble Lord appreciate that if there had been an adequate response to the demands made by

hon. Members on both sides of the House, that there should be a proper balance in the provision of armaments in the Middle East, and if Israel had been properly supplied, we might have been able to avoid the present impasse with Egypt?

Lord John Hope: I think the right hon. Gentleman knows that in the view of the Government a balance has been struck, and that is precisely what the Government, with the other Powers in the Tripartite Agreement, have done their best to do all the time.

Mr. Elliot: Would my noble Friend not agree that while the three parties to the Tripartite Agreement are now actually meeting in London, this would be a very appropriate occasion to review the undertakings and to see whether any new circumstances have arisen which might affect that Agreement?

Lord John Hope: My right hon. Friend will, no doubt, hear the statement which will be made in due course after these very vital conversations have taken place.

Mr. Strachey: Has not the Government's policy in fact amounted to arming their enemies and penalising their friends?

Lord John Hope: No, Sir.

Mr. K. Thompson: Can my noble Friend clear up what really is happening to these destroyers which are said to be in preparation for Egypt, which might in certain eventualities be a grave embarrassment to us in another part of the world?

Lord John Hope: No, Sir; that is another question.

Mr. Shinwell: Are we to understand from what the noble Lord says in reply to his right hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot) that the Government are contemplating making a statement tomorrow or at a very early date, obviously before the Recess, indicating whether, in view of the changed position in the Middle East, they intend to supply adequate arms to the State of Israel? Is that what he means?

Lord John Hope: No, Sir, not at all. I simply asked my right hon. Friend to await the statement on the results of these vital conversations. I do not know


any more than the right hon. Gentleman himself what the statement is going to be.

Mr. S. Silverman: Do the Government realise that if they had taken a firm attitude when the Suez Canal was first closed to Israeli shipping, they would be in a very much stronger position to handle their difficulties today?

Sir R. Boothby: On a point of order. I desire to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED NATIONS CHARTER (COMMITTEE)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what proposals have been put by the United Kingdom delegate to the United Nations Committee which is considering the question of the review of the United Nations Charter.

Lord John Hope: The Committee in question has not yet been set up, and no proposals have so far been put forward by the United Kingdom or any other Member of the United Nations.

Mr. Beswick: Does not the Joint Under-Secretary think that we ought to be looking ahead in these matters? Do not the events of the past few days prove that, instead of just turning to the United Nations whenever we are in a crisis, we should be planning ahead and strengthening the authority of that body? May we have an assurance that the matter is receiving the attention of the Government?

Lord John Hope: Yes, Sir, we are certainly looking ahead, but we do not think that the hon. Gentleman's suggestion represents the right method at the moment.

Mr. Usborne: As the British delegate last November voted for the setting up of the Committee, does not the Joint Under-Secretary think it proper for the Government to produce some ideas about how the Charter might be altered and improved now that it is being considered from that angle?

Lord John Hope: No, Sir; I do not think that alters the position.

Oral Answers to Questions — DISARMAMENT SUB COMMITTEE MEETINGS (VERBATIM RECORDS)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the new proposals recently put forward, he will now have printed the verbatim records of the United Nations Disarmament Sub-Committee meetings held at Lancaster House earlier this year.

Lord John Hope: No, Sir. The considerations mentioned in my reply to the hon. Member on 6th June still apply.

Mr. Beswick: Having now had an opportunity of reading the verbatim records, is the Joint Under-Secretary aware that the only conclusion anyone can reach is that the reason why the Government do not want the reports to have wider circulation is that they are afraid that their wriggling attitude in this matter will be disclosed to a wide public?

Lord John Hope: That seems an odd conclusion to draw from the publishing by the Government of the verbatim reports, which has been done.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Will the Joint Under-Secretary represent to the Secretary of State that it is very desirable that these records should be in the hands of hon. Members before the General Assembly meets in September?

Lord John Hope: Hon. Members can see them in the Library now.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY (VICTIMS OF NAZI PERSECUTION)

Major Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in what respects the compensation laws recently agreed to by the German Parliament fail to implement the understandings reached in the Bonn Convention; with which other countries this problem has been discussed; in what form protests have been made to the German Government; what reply has been received; and whether he is aware of the widespread disappointment of people, other than Germans and Jews, who were persecuted by the Nazis, at the present failure of the German Government to comply with its obligations.

Lord John Hope: It is the view of Her Majesty's Government that under the Bonn Settlement Convention the Federal Republic of Germany assumed the obligation of making adequate compensation to Allied nationals who were victims of Nazi persecution, including those who were persecuted in consequence of participation in national resistance movements, and to stateless persons and refugees who suffered permanent injury to their health. The new legislation does not appear to make satisfactory provision for these classes of victims.
Her Majesty's Government's view has been stated on several occasions to the Government of the Federal Republic. This view is shared by a number of countries, and, shortly after the passage of the new legislation, we joined with the Governments of Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway in proposing to the Federal Government that a Working Group be set up to go into this matter and discuss remedies. The Federal Government have replied that they are considering this suggestion.
The answer to the last part of the Question is "Yes, Sir." Her Majesty's Government will continue to press their views in every suitable way.

Major Beamish: Is my hon. Friend aware that, while it is usually an impertinence to try to interpret the views of the whole House, it would probably be difficult to find an hon. Member who does not feel very strongly indeed that the continued refusal of the German Government to live up to its clear moral obligations is something to which we all object?

Mr. Zilliacus: Would the Government consider intimating to the German Government that, failing satisfaction on this question, they will bring Germany before the Permanent Court of International Justice on a charge of violating her obligations on a matter deeply affecting us and all humanity?

Lord John Hope: We had better see how things go before we decide what to do next.

Mr. Younger: Is the Joint Under-Secretary of State aware that his hon. and gallant Friend is for once right in saying that there is general agreement on these topics in all quarters of the House?

Oral Answers to Questions — CYPRUS

Pamphlet

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will arrange to make available to the general public, by sale or otherwise, the pamphlet "Why we are in Cyprus," issued as background notes for British Service men.

The Minister of State for Colonial Affairs (Mr. John Hare): Yes, Sir. This pamphlet has been given on request to journalists, lecturers and members of the public by my Department and by the Cyprus Government Office in London. It has been sent by the Central Office of Information to members of the public who have asked to receive regular information on foreign and colonial affairs.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: May I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, because this is a most excellent document which sets out very clearly why it is necessary to maintain British sovereignty over Cyprus?

Mr. Bevan: Will the right hon. Gentleman make this document available in the House of Commons so that we may find out whether public money is being used for party propaganda purposes?

Mr. Hare: I will certainly see that the right hon. Gentleman has a copy.

Oral Answers to Questions — SEYCHELLES

Customs Department (Hydrometers)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if the Customs Department of the Seychelles now possesses the correct type of hydrometer and conversion tables for estimating the alcoholic percentage of rum and wines.

Mr. Hare: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Swingler: Has the Minister of State made inquiries into why the Customs Department of the Seychelles did not possess the proper instruments for a period of four years, so that £89,000 was lost in revenue? Will he say who was responsible for this state of affairs, which has been admitted by his right hon. Friend, and whether disciplinary action has been taken?

Mr. Hare: I think the hon. Gentleman's facts are not quite right. As I understand it, in January, 1955, it was found that the old hydrometers had become inaccurate and steps were taken to replace them. Unfortunately, owing to delays in this country, the manufacturers were not able to supply new hydrometers until October of that year.

Mr. Swingler: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend has had to write off a sum of £89,000 which was not collected in Customs duties in the Seychelles owing to the lack of proper equipment? Surely some action should have been taken against those responsible?

Mr. Hare: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, if he is asked, my right hon. Friend will deal with that matter in the debate. It is not part of this Question.

Supplies Department (Accounts)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why, in the accounts of the Supplies Department of the Seychelles for the year 1954, transactions which actually resulted in a loss of Rs.29,887 were shown as yielding a profit of Rs.74,291.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): This discrepancy arose from two errors: (a) the inclusion in the 1954 account of exceptional receipts of Rs.108,899 arising from trading in previous years; (b) an accounting error of Rs.4,719.

Mr. Swingler: Is this not an extraordinary and disgraceful state of affairs? Is it not also extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman's Department, which has been in possession of the auditor's report for six months, has so far taken no action whatsoever to find out why half the departments in the Seychelles should not have their accounts audited and why such exceptional discrepancies and extraordinary fiddling of the books has been going on?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Gentleman's assumptions are quite incorrect, but I will deal with the matter in the debate.

Officers (Salaries)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies with respect to the revision of salaries in the Seychelles in

1954, how many officers were converted to a salary higher than the correct one; and in how many cases retrospective approval was given for these officers to remain on that salary.

Mr. Hare: Only two cases of conversion to a salary higher than the correct one are known to have occurred, although nine other cases are under investigation. In one case the officer concerned has reverted to the proper salary, and in the other the conversion made, whilst strictly incorrect, was considered equitable and it was, with my right hon. Frend's prior approval, confirmed.

Mr. Swingler: Is it then the case that the Minister of State is disputing the word of the principal auditor who audited the accounts of the departments in the Seychelles, which were presented to his office in January of this year, when he said:
Following the revision of salaries in 1954, many queries were issued regarding the wrong conversion of certain officers. In every single case where an officer was erroneously converted to a salary higher than the correct one, retrospective approval was given for these officers to remain on that salary.
Is the right hon. Gentleman disputing that statement of the principal auditor, and, if so, what action is he taking to examine it and what reply does the auditor make?

Mr. Hare: I have in front of me the actual quotation which the hon. Gentleman has given. I can tell him that what happened was that the principal auditor had seven such cases in mind. On examination, five of these cases were found to be in order. It is the other two to which I have referred; one of those was confirmed and one officer reverted to his previous salary.

Mr. J. Johnson: What is the matter with the auditing of this Colony? It is not only last year, for, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, there are scores of items going back to 1951 which the auditor has found impossible to check, and he cannot even get evidence with which to check them.

Mr. Hare: That was not the Question I was asked. I tried to answer the hon. Gentleman on the specific point that he raised. I think these are probably all matters which should be raised in the debate.

Mr. Bovan: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that this auditor's report is one of the most extraordinary documents that hon. Members can possibly have ever read? There is hardly a paragraph in the report which does not condemn the Administration. As we are going to discuss this matter very shortly, and as the present Governor was appointed only in 1953, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has armed himself with information about what steps have been taken to remedy the situation since?

Mr. Hare: The right hon. Gentleman is already trying to start the debate. There is nothing about the auditor in the Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA

All-Party Delegation

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the recent request made to the Governor by the Christian Council of Kenya asking for an all-party delegation to be sent to the Colony to clear up uneasiness about conditions there, he will now arrange to send such a delegation.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The matter is at present under consideration.

Mrs. Castle: Is it not a fact that members of the Christian Council of Kenya have protested to the Governor of Kenya against the attacks by Mr. Wellwood on Colonel Young, who was described by Mr. Wellwood as an irresponsible policeman who stabbed Kenya in the back, and it failed to get satisfaction from the Governor when it asked whether this was the official view of the Kenya Government? Is not this another instance of the unsatisfactory attitude of the Kenya Government towards the problems of Kenya which necessitates an impartial inquiry by hon. Members?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am sorry that the hon. Lady has used the opportunity of a quite sensible suggestion by the Christian Council of Kenya for a Parliamentary delegation on the lines of that led by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot) to revive some of the other charges against the Governor of Kenya. I will answer the hon. Lady, even though her supplementary bore no

relation to the Question. The matter is under consideration. There is a great deal to be said for it, provided that it is in no sense a commission of inquiry, but an all-party delegation, and I am in touch with the Governor about it.

Prisons and Detention Camps (Memorandum)

Mr. Fenner Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what have been the results of the investigation into the allegations made by Miss Eileen Fletcher regarding conditions in prisons and detention camps in Kenya.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As I informed the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) in a Written Reply yesterday, copies of a memorandum setting out the results of investigations completed to date into Miss Fletcher's allegations have been placed in the Library. Since that memorandum was prepared, I have received a statutory declaration by Miss Fletcher and copies of this will be placed in the Library tomorrow. When Parliament reassembles, I will make available comments on those parts of the statutory declaration which are not covered in the first memorandum.

Mr. Brockway: Will the proposed Parliamentary delegation have the opportunity to consider both the charges that were made by Miss Fletcher and the replies made by the Government of Kenya so that they may come to some impartial Government decision between one and the other?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: There can be no question of anything approaching what can be thought to be in any way a commission of inquiry, but naturally Members of this House and of the other place going to Kenya will have read the documents which by then will have been fully available.

Land Consolidation, Nyanza (Demonstrations)

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the demonstration by people of Luo on 31st May at Mombasa and elsewhere against the consolidations of their land holdings in the Nyanza province of Kenya; what action has been taken against those responsible; what is the density of population in the areas


affected by these consolidation schemes; and what plans are proposed to relieve land hunger.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: At meetings in Mombasa and Nairobi on 31st May and 3rd June, demonstrations occurred when a Government spokesman attempted to explain proposals for land consolidation in Nyanza in order to refute false rumours. Subsequent discussions with leading Nyanza Africans in Mombasa and Nairobi together with broadcasts have gone far to allay fears and suspicions about these proposals.
Since the majority of those involved in the demonstrations genuinely believed the rumours, and in view of their subsequent good behaviour, no action has been taken against them. Only one consolidation scheme has been prepared: it is not yet in operation. Population density in this area is 393 to the square mile. Experience indicates that consolidation and planned holdings should relieve pressure on land where it exists.

Mr. Rankin: Is the Minister aware that in Nyanza there is real land hunger and that that was the root cause of these demonstrations? Is he further aware that adjacent to the Province there are the fertile lands of the White Highlands? Is it not possible to use the under-developed parts of the White Highlands to relieve the overwhelming population density that exists in the Province?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is another question. What I am concerned about is that land at present under occupation by Africans should be properly used. I am glad to say that after they had been taken to see some of the spectacular results of consolidation in the Kikuyu Reserve there has been a change of view.

Mr. J. Johnson: Whilst not opposing the introduction of land consolidation, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to be very careful how fast he goes? Is he aware that not only in Mombasa on the coast but also inland at Kisumu in Nyanza itself there have been riots?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am very conscious of that and of the need to carry the people with us. The president of the Luo Union, with whom we are in constant touch, is helping to do that.

Mr. Baldwin: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Agricultural Department of the Kenya Government is making tremendous strides in meeting the existing land hunger and that the progress is wonderful?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, Sir.

Mageta Island Detention Camp

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the trouble among Mau Mau prisoners at Mageta Island detention camp, Kenya, which led to the detailing of 50 extra prison staff to the camp on 16th July.

Mr. Hare: Mage. Island is a special detention camp in which 1,995 Mau Mau adherents are detained in the interests of maintaining public order. It is a potentially valuable agricultural area covered with thick bush, which is being cleared by the detainees who are paid for the work they do. Since 22nd June, however, the detainees have refused to do any work other than camp maintenance.
Experience has shown that it is difficult to rehabilitate any detainee who is not given work to do; accordingly, an investigation was put in hand to identify the ringleaders. This was being resisted, and to prevent passive resistance turning to violence and to deal with violence should it occur, security forces on the Island were increased, 209 ringleaders were identified and isolated without incident on 20th July, in the presence of the Deputy Commissioner of Prisons.

Mrs. Castle: Is it not a fact that, under the Emergency Regulations of Kenya, detainees in special camps of this kind can be compelled only to do work which contributes to the ending of the emergency, and that these men have been compelled to do general agricultural work which does not fall within this category? Can the right hon. Gentleman honestly say that it is rehabilitating offenders to compel them to do work contrary to the law?

Mr. Hare: I cannot accept the assumption of the hon. Lady that this work is contrary to the law. My information is that the work is within the Emergency Regulation under which it has been ordered. I will certainly look into what the hon. Lady says, but I think she is wrong.

Mr. S. Silverman: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many out of nearly 2,000 of these persons have actually been charged with offences or convicted of offences, and how far, therefore, it is proper to describe them as offenders?

Mr. Hare: I think the hon. Gentleman should know that these are the hard core of Mau Mau, most of whom have not been tried by the courts because it was impossible to bring witnesses forward in face of the intimidation and threats which have been levelled.

Mr. Bevan: They are not offenders—is that what the Minister means? They are persons who are detained in the public interest. How long have they been detained, and if they are engaged on agricultural work, is it work for the Administration or work for private persons?

Mr. Hare: I have used the word "detainees" throughout. The length of time that these people have been detained obviously varies very much. Without full investigation, I cannot begin to answer that question.

Mr. Bevan: Is it not desirable to obtain information if there is a Question on the Order Paper which relates to unrest amongst a large number of prisoners who are detainees at Her Majesty's pleasure in the public interest and for the purpose of maintaining public order? Would it not have been desirable to find out whether their resentment is not against their continued detention over a long period of time with hardly any hope of getting out.

Mr. Hare: Again I think it is unreasonable of the right hon. Gentleman to suggest that I should have found out full details of how long all these people have been detained when it was not in the Question.

Rehabilitation Officers

Major Wall: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the establishment of rehabilitation officers in Kenya and the number of permanent and temporary rehabilitation officers at present employed; and how many of the permanent officers are European, Asian and African, respectively.

Mr. Hare: The establishment of rehabilitation officers has recently been

increased to 84. Eleven permanent and 61 temporary officers are at present employed; of the 11 permanent staff eight are European, three are African and none is Asian. There are, in addition, 126 African rehabilitation assistants against an establishment of 149.

Major Wall: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this type of rehabilitation and welfare work is an excellent outlet for the educated African? Would he look into the possibility of increasing the permanent number of Africans in this welfare work?

Mr. Hare: I will certainly consider what my hon. and gallant Friend has said, but one hopes that the need for rehabilitation of the hard core of Mau Mau will be a decreasing and not an increasing need.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL TERRITORIES

Colonial Development Corporation (Kariba Dam Project)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what proportion of the financing of the Kariba Dam contract was originally sought from the Colonial Development Corporation.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The Corporation sought and were given approval for a loan of £15 million. I am not aware that any other amount was sought from the Corporation.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is it within the power of my right hon. Friend to suggest to Colonial Governments that they should apply to the Colonial Development Corporation for the full amount of finance required, so that we can do without the World Bank?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: On a previous occasion I, or one of my colleagues, explained that if all the finance of this or comparable schemes came from the Corporation there would be nothing available from that body for other smaller but very important schemes.

Oral Answers to Questions — UGANDA

Sedition (Prosecutions)

Mr. Fenner Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies on what grounds prosecutions have recently


been instituted against seven persons responsible for three newspapers in Uganda; and what were the sentences imposed.

Mr. Hare: These persons have been charged under the Penal Code with printing and publishing seditious matter. Three have been convicted and awarded fines ranging from £50 to £250. The cases against the others are still sub judice.

Mr. Brockway: In relation to the cases which are not sub judice, does the right hon. Gentleman not think, in view of the desire to begin afresh after the return of the Kabaka and the discussions now going on about constitutional changes, that it is a mistake to begin charges in the courts which interfere with the free expression of opinion?

Mr. Hare: The hon. Member really knows that all these matters are within the discretion of the courts of Uganda. They are not within the discretion of the House of Commons. These were decided by the Uganda courts, and I do not think that there is any other comment I can make.

Karamoja District

Mr. Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why no persons are allowed to enter the district of Karamoja in Uganda without a permit; and what steps are being taken to enable residents of this district to elect representatives to the Legislative Council in next year's election.

Mr. Hare: As regards the first part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) on 15th June, 1955. As regards the second part, no change is contemplated in the composition of the Uganda Legislative Council which would provide for representation from Karamoja next year.

Mr. Rankin: Is the Minister not aware that, in isolating Karamoja from the rest of Uganda, he may promote the very discontents that he is seeking to avoid, and will he not consider removing the ban which exists against members of the Uganda National Congress being admitted into the district?

Mr. Hare: I will certainly consider what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I think the answer is in the negative.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA AND NYASALAND

African Civil Service (Pay and Conditions)

Mr. J. Hynd: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has now heard from the Governors of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland concerning the adoption of the Lidbury Commission recommendations on Civil Services rates and conditions in their application to African employees; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland Governments have decided that the recommendations of the Lidbury Commission would not be suitable in those territories. Revised salaries and conditions of service for the African Civil Service have, however, been introduced in Nyasaland and the Government of Northern Rhodesia will shortly be announcing a revision there also.

Mr. Hynd: Is the Minister aware that this Commission, after going very thoroughly into the matter, recommended that these Civil Service conditions should be applied, irrespectve of race, and that this was accepted by the Kenya Government? In those circumstances, would the Minister explain why these conditions are not acceptable in Northern Rhodesia?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It is always dangerous to compare situations in differing territories. One must remember that in East Africa the basis of the Lidbury proposals was that there should be the same basic salary for Africans as for locally recruited Europeans, but that there should be an inducement payment to people recruited from outside. In the case of the two Northern Territories in the Federation, regard should be paid to the fact that there would naturally be reluctance on the part of the Federal Government to accept differentiations between the salaries of officers recruited in Southern Rhodesia and those recruited from outside. This is one of the differences, but at the end of the day what matters is the pay packets of the African employees, and I am satisfied that in both territories there should be worth-while improvements.

Mr. Hynd: Does that mean that Southern Rhodesian practice is being adopted in the other parts of the Federation?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: No, certainly not.

African Congress Boycott (Arrests)

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Africans have been arrested in Mufulira in connection with the Northern Rhodesian African Congress boycott campaign; what were the sentences imposed; under what sections, of what Acts was this done; and in particular what was the charge brought against Simon Kapwepwe in Abercorn, and what was the sentence.

Mr. Hare: Four Africans were charged under Section 358 (4) of the Penal Code of conspiring together at Mufulira to injure traders in their trade. All were acquitted.
Simon Kapwepwe was charged with holding a meeting in Abercorn Township in contravention of Native Authority Orders and native customary law, after having been personally warned by the District Commissioner that the meeting would be unlawful unless permission had been obtained. He was sentenced by the Native Authority to three months' imprisonment and a fine of £5; on appeal the fine was remitted.

Mr. Johnson: Would the Minister give the House an assurance that all African Congress members so charged will be allowed bail and given time to get counsel for the defence, and in so far as this boycott campaign is proving peaceful, will the Minister give an assurance that he will not pass legislation to make the boycotting of shops illegal in Northern Rhodesia?

Mr. Hare: I cannot give any guarantees to the hon. Gentleman, but I will certainly see that what he has said is taken note of by the Government concerned.

Oral Answers to Questions — TANGANYIKA

Whitley Council (Draft Constitution)

Mr. J. Hynd: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what further progress has been made with the constitution of the Whitley Council for Tanganyika, since 22nd February, 1956.

Mr. Hare: Discussion of the draft constitution for the Whitley Council is still deferred, pending consideration (which is now in progress) of proposals for reconstituting the staff associations on a non-racial basis.

Mr. Hynd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that as long ago as 15th August, 1955, the Minister wrote to me telling me that a committee had been set up to establish these Whitley Councils and saying that the board was likely to be replaced before long by a Whitley Council? Can he give any hope that this matter is likely to reach a conclusion early?

Mr. Hare: The Tanganyika Government are fully alive to the importance of staff relations and, therefore, of trying to establish Whitley Councils, but I think that the hon. Member will agree that for the future it is immensely important to try to secure the formation of non-racial staff associations. These things will require delicate negotiations, but I do not think that there will be any undue delay.

Oral Answers to Questions — ADEN

Demonstration (Casualties)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many people were killed and injured in Aden on 9th July when the police fired on demonstrators in connection with the labourers' strike; and on what authority the police opened fire.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Four people were killed and fifteen injured. Also four policemen were injured. The police, who were being attacked by an unlawful assembly in circumstances endangering public security, opened fire as authorised by Section 97 of the Aden Criminal Procedure Ordinance.

Mrs. Castle: Is this not really a most alarming state of affairs, that four civilians should have been killed and 15 injured by fire from the police when they were meeting in connection with a demonstration arising out of the general strike? Although this may have been an unlawful assembly in Aden, does it not seem to the people of this country a perfectly normal piece of civilian activity, and will not the Colonial Secretary look into the question of the general administration of the


police in Aden in view of the violence used on this occasion?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am perfectly satisfied with the excellent work achieved by the Governor of Aden, who has just left the Colony, and also the work that will be done by his successor who will arrive there shortly—[Laughter.] I am also quite sure that the action taken prevented a far more serious outbreak with far more grave consequences.

Mr. Bevan: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that his assurance that he is perfectly satisfied with all the administrations for which he is responsible is not only becoming boring but more and more inaccurate? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]

Oral Answers to Questions — ATOMIC ENERGY

Radio-active Materials (Sea Dumping)

Mr. R. Edwards: asked the Lord Privy Seal (1) what arrangements there are for controlling and keeping records of all dumping of radio-active material in the ocean;
(2) what steps he is taking to institute safe standards for marine disposal of radio-active materials.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Only mildly radio-active material is disposed of by dumping in the sea and prior authorisation is required from the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who sets limits to the amount to be dumped in any one area, taking into account the nature of the material. A responsible official of the Atomic Energy Authority witnesses each disposal. He provides the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food with a record of the total weight and number of containers dumped, the area of dumping and an assurance that the conditions stipulated by the Minister have been fulfilled.
The containers in which the material is enclosed are strong enough to resist corrosion for long periods, so that by the time the waste products begin to escape, the radio-activity will have substantially decayed. No health hazard is therefore involved.

Mr. Edwards: I wonder if the Lord Privy Seal has studied the report produced in Washington by the National

Academy of Science, one of whose nine recommendations suggested the urgent necessity for international control of the dumping of radio-active materials in the ocean and the recording of such dumping? In view of this very important report, would not the Government be prepared to look at the need for international control of such dumping?

Mr. Butler: I do not think that we need go in for international control of such dumping. Of course, I am aware of the report to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I think that the answer I have given about the really almost uninteresting level of the health hazard should reassure hon. Members. The hon. Gentleman may be glad to hear that the levels of radiation to which staff who take part in the dumping operations are exposed are limited by internationally accepted standards, so to that extent we do pay attention to international standards.

Mr. Usborne: Why should the United Nations not be asked to keep a record of the places where this material is dumped, in case later on it may be discovered that there is greater radio-activity than is now known?

Mr. Butler: I will investigate whether it should be the United Nations or not, but I am certainly ready to listen to what the hon. Member has suggested.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Lord Privy Seal whether he will state the business for the first week after the summer Recess?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for the first week after the Summer Recess will be as follows:

TUESDAY, 23rd October—Committee and remaining stages of the Hill Farming Bill.

Second Reading of the Education (Scotland) Bill [Lords].

WEDNESDAY, 24th October—Report stage of the Copyright Bill [Lords].

Consideration of the Motion relating to the Double Taxation Relief (Switzerland) Order.

THURSDAY, 25th October—Conclusion of the Report stage and Third Reading of the Copyright Bill [Lords].

FRIDAY, 26th October—There will be an opportunity to debate the problem of Crown Privilege for Documents and Oral Evidence on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House.

It may be convenient for me to inform the House that it is expected that Prorogation will take place during the week beginning Monday, 29th October, and that the New Session will be opened on Tuesday, 6th November.

I would remind the House that power already exists for you, Mr. Speaker, upon representations being made by the Government, to call the House together at an earlier date if such a course should be necessary in the public interest.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman why the Education (Scotland) Bill [Lords], which has been on the Order Paper for a very long time, should suddenly be taken right at the end of the Session? What is the Government's intention about the Committee stage of that Bill? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in his absence last week I pressed the Government to find time, before the end of the Session, for a further day's debate on defence, and also for debates on the nationalised industries? Can he give an assurance that time will be found for these during the second week after the end of the Recess?

Mr. Butler: I can consider only the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's request. We will consider it and discuss it through the usual channels. I could not give any undertaking, but I will register what he has said.
With reference to the Second Reading of the Education (Scotland) Bill [Lords], the reason we want to take it is that we want to get it through. I have made inquiries since my return and I know that Scottish Members are anxious about this matter, and in their interests we propose to take a whole day in the week succeeding 26th October for the Committee stage, on the Floor of the House. I think that that should give ample opportunity for discussion of the Bill.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this Bill, although

small in number of pages, opens up a very large number of subjects and may, therefore, be subject to very considerable amendment? Has his right hon. Friend made sufficient inquiry into what is likely to be the amount of business and discussion arising in the course of this Bill?

Mr. Butler: We have made considerable inquiry. I have received a report from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland about the Bill and about the views of hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies. We think that the arrangements which I have proposed—namely, to take the Second Reading on one day and then to give a whole day for the Committee stage—are fair and reasonable. If they are not fair and reasonable, we have plenty of time before that date to listen to the representations of hon. Members.

Mr. Woodburn: It indicates that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is becoming a super-optimist.

Mr. Clement Davies: The right hon. Gentleman referred to the power which resides in you, Mr. Speaker, during the very long Adjournment, to call the House back on the request of the Executive. Will not the Government consider whether it is right at this time to leave that request entirely in the hands of the Executive? We are adjourning for a very long time at a difficult period. Would the Government consider whether it would not be right that the power should be exercisable by you Mr. Speaker, on the request of a certain number of hon. Members, say, 40?

Dr. Summerskill: Will the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House consider postponing the coming into operation of the Welfare Foods (Great Britain) Amendment Order, 1956, No. 1130? This Order was laid on Friday and comes into operation on 1st September. May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman—and perhaps I may evoke some sympathy—that this Order will reduce the amount of milk given in day nurseries from one-third of a pint every morning and every afternoon to one-third of a pint per day? I am sure that the Leader of the House will agree that this is an incredibly mean Order and nutritionally indefensible. My right hon. Friends therefore wish to pray


against it, but if it comes into operation on 1st September we shall not have an opportunity to do so.

Mr. Butler: I roust honestly say that I have not studied the details of this Order. As the right hon. Lady obviously attaches great importance to it, perhaps I may have an opportunity to look into it before I give a considered reply.

Mr. Speaker: In reply to the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), I should say that the question which he raised is governed by Standing Order No. 112.

Mr. S. Silverman: Does the Leader of the House recall that, arising out of the regrettable difference of opinion between the two Houses of Parliament about the Death Penalty (Abolition) Bill, the Prime Minister promised a statement of Government policy on the future stages of that Bill before the end of the Session? Can he say when the statement will be made?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir. I can say no more than my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, namely, that a statement will be made before the end of the Session.

Miss Herbison: Did the Leader of the House receive from the Secretary of State for Scotland not only the views of Conservative Scottish Members about the Education (Scotland) Bill [Lords] but also the views of Labour Members on the matter? Does he not realise that this is a very important Measure, and that it is very bad treatment indeed of the House that a Bill which has been on the Order Paper for very many months should be crushed into the last two weeks of the Session?

Mr. Butler: My right hon. Friend told me of the views of hon. Members opposite as well as the views of hon. Members on this side of the House who represent Scottish constituencies. I have here a full memorandum from him, with a copy of the Bill and what we think are likely to be the most difficult features of it. We think that the procedure which we suggest is reasonable for Scottish Members. If it is not, they have an opportunity to tell us so during the Recess.

Dame Irene Ward: When my right hon. Friend is considering the allocation of the days when we return, will he bear

in mind that we still have not had a debate on the Phillips Report, and that there are quite a lot of things which I would willingly postpone if we could have a debate on that Report?

Mr. Butler: I see no opportunity in the near future on having a debate on the Phillips Report.

Mr. Hobson: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the question of having a debate on the Herbert Report on the Electricity Supply Industry between the end of the Recess and the Prorogation?

Mr. Butler: That depends on whether we find it possible on a day when we discuss the nationalised industries.

Mr. Wigg: The right hon. Gentleman is doubtless aware that all sections of the Army Reserve can be called out for service at home without Proclamation, but that Section B and lower categories can be called out for service overseas only after Proclamation. Would he give the House an assurance, in view of the Press reports this morning, that if Section A is called out for service overseas the House will be recalled?

Mr. Butler: I cannot give any such assurance without examining the statement which the hon. Member has made, the clarity and accuracy of which I believe to be correct.

Mr. E. Fletcher: Can the Lord Privy Seal tell us whether we shall have an opportunity, before the end of the Session, of considering the White Paper on Local Government; Areas and Status of Local Authorities in England and Wales?

Mr. Butler: The first thing is to see the White Paper and then to consider it. I think that we had better see it first.

Mr. Willey: As the Lord Privy Seal has kindly indicated that he is willing to review the cut in the supply of milk to children at nursery schools, and as it appears that it has been imposed without his knowledge, I beg to give notice, to assist the Lord Privy Seal in coming to a better conclusion in advising the Government about the matter, that I shall endeavour to raise this topic during the course of today's proceedings.

Mr. Butler: My remarks were made entirely without prejudice. I always believe that when one is not in possession of the facts, it is better to tell the House. I was not in possession of the facts in respect of this particular matter, and I should like to examine the facts—in response to what the right hon. Lady put to me—before I make a statement.

Mr. Rankin: Is the Leader of the House aware that the anxiety of Scottish Members about the Education (Scotland) Bill [Lords] was due to the fact that they desired sufficient time to discuss the Bill? I understand that that position was accepted on behalf of the Government. Is he now aware that the introduction of what is, in fact, a time-table to dispose of the Bill is a gross breach of faith with the Opposition?

Mr. Maude: Is my right hon. Friend aware that hon. Members representing non-county boroughs in the County of Middlesex, having read the White Paper on Local Government, are deeply disturbed about its implications and would very much welcome the earliest possible opportunity of debating it in order to discover the intentions of the Government?

Mr. Butler: One of the objects of publishing the White Paper before the Recess was to obtain the reactions of local authorities. My hon. Friend has given me a violent reaction which will be noted. When we have some more reactions, some of which may be more favourable, we can consider time for a discussion.

Mr. Bowles: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what are the proposals about the House of Commons Disqualification Bill, which was reported back last Thursday? Will it be reintroduced next Session, if it cannot be dealt with this Session?

Mr. Butler: We will have to see when we can fit that in. It is an important matter and we should not lose much more time in dealing with it.

BRITISH MOTOR CORPORATION DISPUTE (TALKS)

Mr. G. Brown: (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Labour whether he can now make a statement on the progress of his Department's talks with the parties involved in the B.M.C. dispute.

The Minister of Labour and National Service (Mr. Iain Macleod): Yes, Sir. My officers had separate meetings with the employers and unions concerned yesterday which resulted in agreement to take part in informal joint talks under the chairmanship of the Chief Industrial Commissioner. These joint talks started this morning and are in progress at this moment. I am sure that the House will not expect me to say any more at this stage.

Mr. Brown: I am sure that the whole House will feel that we should express our relief that these talks have been got going in this way and will agree that nothing more should be said at this stage while the talks are in progress. Will the Minister personally keep in touch with the progress of the talks, so that if they run into snags he will be available to deal with them?

Mr. Macleod: Certainly, Sir.

ECONOMIC STATISTICS

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Harold Macmillan): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on the subject of statistics.
In my Budget speech, I said that I was considering ways of improving our economic statistics. During the last two years important improvements have been made with the full co-operation of industry. But the information available still does not provide us with enough up-to-date knowledge of changes in the economic situation. It is in the interests of everyone that this information should be available. The earlier the Government have it the more timely can be their action to keep the economy on an even course. In economics, as in medicine, early diagnosis is the essential preliminary to effective treatment.
The Government do not need this information only for their own use. The business community and the public need it just as much. The improvement of our statistical information must be a continuing process, but I can now indicate the general lines of our immediate programme.
Our first need is to be up to date. We are, of course, largely in the hands of the people who supply the information. I


cannot stress too much how important it is that firms should provide the statistics we need just as soon as they can.
Secondly, some material which informs us about the state of industry is received at intervals which are too long in relation to the speed with which events can move. From some important industries which are not already providing them we shall be asking for monthly statistics about their production and orders; and in a variety of industries we shall be seeking more frequent returns or new returns where none is now made.
Thirdly, there are serious gaps in our information about fixed investment and stocks, particularly in the distributive and service trades. Yet fixed investment and stocks are two of the most volatile elements in the economy. They are liable to fluctuate widely, causing substantial changes in the economic climate and in the balance of payments.
We propose, therefore, to institute an annual sample inquiry, in the distributive and service trades which, if it is to yield reliable information, must be compulsory so that the value of the figures willingly supplied by the majority of traders will not be nullified by the inaction of a minority. In addition, we shall be asking more firms in these trades to provide on a voluntary basis quarterly information on fixed investment and stocks. The figures we need are few but vital, and I believe that they can be provided without undue trouble.
Fourthly, it is important to know as far in advance as possible the trend of investment in building. The Minister of Works is consulting the building and civil engineering industries about the possibility of their providing analysed information of their new contracts.
Fifthly, we propose to invite a number of companies voluntarily to provide quarterly estimates of profits, in confidence, to the Inland Revenue Department. Of course, only summaries of the returns, which will not reveal the affairs of individual concerns, will be published or made available outside the Department. Neither I nor anyone else in the Treasury will have the individual figures.
Sixthly, we are studying, in co-operation with the Bank of England, how we can best improve the statistics of the balance of payments, especially capital transactions.
Seventhly, it is proposed to have a continuing inquiry among a small sample of households in order to provide up-to-date information about changes in income and expenditure. This will keep up to date the information obtained by the Ministry of Labour in 1953–54.
We are very much aware that all this information depends on the willing cooperation of the public. I am sure that this will be forthcoming, for it really is in the public interest.
We are considering what improvements and extensions can be made in the presentation and publication of statistics so that Parliament, industry and the public may be kept as well informed as possible. One important objective is to combine the available information into quarterly estimates of the national expenditure and its components, similar to the annual figures given in the National Income Blue Book and Economic Surveys.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Chancellor aware that nobody on this side of the House would question the need for the Government to have more, more up-to-date and more accurate statistics with the hope, at any rate, that they will be able to guide the economy somewhat better than they have done in recent months? For that reason we welcome the statement he has made, even though it means an enormous plethora of forms descending on industries and businesses. May I ask this specific question? Will he give an assurance that the figures of stocks which he collects will be published as frequently as they are collected, so that the general public may have an idea of the trend of this extremely important index of economic activity?

Mr. Macmillan: I am glad to have the right hon. Gentleman's approval, even with the degree of castigation which he thought it proper, for purely party reasons, to impart to it. I will do my best to see that publication is made in the most suitable way possible.

Sir R. Boothby: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be general relief that he will no longer be required to make his economic decisions by reference to last year's time-tables? Will there be direct liaison between the statistical department—that is what I suppose it will be—and Sir Roger Makins? Will Sir Roger be in charge of this department?

Mr. Macmillan: Sir Roger Makins, who succeeds Sir Edward Bridges in one part of the functions of the Treasury, will, of course, preside over the whole of that part of the Treasury which deals with finance and economics and all these activities will be organised under him as the chief civil servant responsible.

Mr. H. Morrison: While associating myself with the welcoming words of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, I wonder whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer would now care to withdraw the castigations made in earlier years against Sir Stafford Cripps. May we now assume that there will be no more talk about the Socialists wanting to spend their lives in getting people to fill up forms? Have the Government now accepted or adumbrated the doctrine that "the filling up of another little form will not do you any harm"?

Mr. Macmillan: That is a very fair comment, and I accept it as such. What we must try to do—and, I think, we can do—is to get rid of some statistical returns which are not necessary and concentrate upon the ones which are necessary; to do much more in the way of more frequent sampling, rather than wait for absolutely complete returns. It is in that direction that great experience has been gained, and I have taken the precaution of trying to get in touch with and find out what is being done by the American Government in similar cases, from which we have a good deal to learn.

Mr. Rippon: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement—

Mr. Snow: The hon. Member was not here in 1946.

Mr. Rippon: I should like to ask him two questions. First, does he propose to supplement the monthly trade figures by fuller information about the terms and trends of trade, including such factors as invisible exports and stocks? Secondly, does he hope to provide fuller information not only about the balance of payments but also about the state of our gold and dollar reserves?

Mr. Macmillan: I think that the part of our statistics which is already almost complete is that which deals with exports and imports. That is very complete and up-to-date, and I do not think that very much more needs to be done to improve

it. With regard to the invisibles and the balance of payments—and especially the movement of capital—we are consulting the Bank of England to see whether we can make this information more up to date, more complete and more accurate.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us which statistical returns he is getting rid of? He has just said that it is his intention to get rid of some. Will he give us an example?

Mr. Macmillan: What I mean is that I do not think it is necessary, to get the kind of information that we want, in every case to cover the whole field. That is why I laid great emphasis upon getting particular firms to give us, upon a voluntary basis, monthly or quarterly statistics of their orders, rather than try to get compulsory returns over the whole field, which would cover every little twopenny-halfpenny firm and would not really make a very great addition to the total amount of information. I feel that I have laid emphasis here upon the sampling method as opposed to the complete method.

Mr. Gaitskell: The right hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that he was getting rid of some forms which were now being sent out. Would he please tell us which forms he is getting rid of?

Mr. Macmillan: I say that I will certainly try to reduce the number. In this matter I cannot give an exact indication—I accept that—but I will try to see, as I am sure will be everybody's wish, that we get the maximum information which is really valuable to us with the minimum of extra work either to industry or to ourselves. I do not want to create large staffs to produce information which is not of real value.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no Question before the House.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

House to meet Tomorrow at Eleven o'clock; no Questions to be taken after Twelve o'clock; at Ten o'clock Mr. Speaker to adjourn the House without putting any Question.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

ADJOURNMENT (SUMMER)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House, at its rising Tomorrow, do adjourn till Tuesday, 23rd October.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

Mr. Clement Davies: May I urge the right hon. Gentleman not to press this Motion today? I emphasise the fact that at the present time a very important conference is going on between the Secretary of State of the United States of America, the Foreign Secretary of France and members of the Government. What the outcome will be we do not know, but tomorrow we are to have a five-hour debate upon this matter. I am asking that this Motion should be postponed until tomorrow, when we will know much better what has happened.

Mr. Gaitskell: I shall not make any particular comment upon what the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) has said, except to suggest to him, with great respect, that if the Motion is postponed until tomorrow it might interfere rather seriously with the progress of the debate on Suez—which is a point which will no doubt have occurred to the Leader of the House. I rise really only to ask the Lord Privy Seal for an assurance that he will give very serious consideration to any representations which might be made by the Opposition during the Recess for the recall of Parliament, should we feel it necessary to approach him and the Prime Minister upon this matter.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Why only the Opposition?

Mr. Gaitskell: The hon. Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) evidently did not hear what the Leader of the House said today. He has already said that, if they think fit, the Government will recall Parliament. I am asking him whether, if the Opposition feel it necessary to recall Parliament and come to the Government with that proposition, the Government will take our views seriously into account. I do not propose to oppose this Motion. As the Prime Minister said, the length of the Recess is a week shorter than it was last year, but we are going away at a very anxious and worrying moment in our affairs and we are all

naturally most concerned that if it is necessary we should certainly be recalled.

Mr. Butler: Perhaps the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) will allow me to deal with the points raised by the Leader of the Opposition. I will certainly give an undertaking that the Government will listen to any representations made by Her Majesty's Opposition about the recall of the House in the event of any international or similar circumstance arising which would seem to make it advisable for the House to be recalled. I give that assurance in an unqualified way.
I would also say, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), that as we are governed by Standing Order No. 112, as you have said, Mr. Speaker—which provides for the recall of the House by Mr. Speaker if the Government make representations to him to do so—the Government will also give an undertaking that we shall pay attention to the point of view of any block or group of hon. Members who feel that the House should be recalled. It is constitutionally right for me to give the first assurance to the Opposition, but equally right that I should give an assurance to the House as a whole that if there is a reason for doing so we should recall the House—and it would be the wish of the Government that the House be recalled if the international situation so demanded. I hope that that answers the right hon. Gentleman and gives him the assurance he wants.
In answer to the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, I would say that I did consider with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister whether we could move this Motion a little later. We discussed the matter with the Opposition through the usual channels and we came to the conclusion, as the right hon. Gentleman has indicated in general terms, that it was inevitable that it should be moved today. To move it tomorrow would mean that I should have to move it, under the Motion that we have already passed, at 12 o'clock, and that would mean that it would be moved before the debate on the Suez Canal, when I do not think that we should be any further forward in considering either the expressions of view which will be


made by the Prime Minister, or any member of the Government—or the House—than we shall be today. What we are really governed by—and I hope that the House will pay attention to this—is the Government's firm determination to recall the House if it should be necessary.
If the Government were not in that mood, I could imagine the right hon. and learned Gentleman wishing to press his case; but as I have given an assurance, not only to the Opposition but to hon. Members as a whole, that we should be ready to recall the House if need arises, and if it is clear that hon. Members desire it, I think it is better, and indeed inevitable, that the Motion should be moved today. That still leaves us five hours, which is quite a long time to debate the Suez question. Let us hope that that debate will contribute, as the discussion today may contribute, to a proper and satisfactory conclusion of that affair.

Mr. Wigg: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider having consultations with the Leader of the Opposition with a view to recalling the House if it is necessary to call out any section of the Army Reserve which is not protected by Proclamation? As matters now stand—I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman would dissent from this—Section B of the Army Reserve can be called out for service outside the United Kingdom only by Proclamation; and if that procedure is used, the House of Commons must be recalled. But there is another section of the Army Reserve, Section A, which is not so protected.
Some of my hon. Friends may think that I am wasting the time of the House in raising this matter—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—but these men are Regular Army Reservists and the only people they have to protect them are hon. Members of this House. At present, these Reservists are going about their jobs and may be thinking, as some hon. Members are

thinking, of going away for the weekend with their families. There will be no Proclamation for them if they are needed, but merely, perhaps on Saturday morning, a notice delivered by the postman through the letter box. Then, instead of spending August Bank Holiday with their families, they will spend it in the Suez Area—[Laughter.] Yes, that is the procedure. Hon. Gentlemen may laugh, but that is the procedure.
In fact, it is possible to call out a number of men—if hon. Gentlemen will be good enough to look at the Army Estimates, they will see that the number may be anything up to 150,000—and, according to the Press this morning, the Government are considering calling up Army Reservists. That could only be Section A Reservists. Therefore, I should have thought that, although hon. Gentlemen are in an hilarious mood, they would wish to protect these men, some of whom may be their constituents.
I am not pressing the Government to recall the House, but I am pressing the Government to give the same protection to these Regular Army Reservists as the rest of the Reservists have. Therefore, without asking the right hon. Gentleman to go so far as to say that the House will be recalled, may I ask whether he will give an assurance to consult with the Leader of the Opposition—or perhaps the Leader of the Opposition will be kind enough to press the Government to recall the House—if Section A of the Army Reserve is called out?

Mr. Butler: I can go no further than I did in answer previously to the hon. Member, namely, to say that I believe his statement of the facts is correct as between Section A and the others, because I have already looked into the matter. But I can give no assurance about recalling the House beyond that which I have already given to the official Opposition and to the House as a whole.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House, at its rising tomorrow, do adjourn till Tuesday, 23rd October.

PUBLIC BODIES (ADMISSION OF THE PRESS TO MEETINGS)

Mr. J. E. S. Simon: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the admission of representatives of the Press to the meetings of certain bodies exercising public functions.
On 8th June this year an important and constructive debate was initiated in the House by the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) in which there was expressed a general consensus of opinion on the desirability of associating public opinion more closely with the processes of local government. The Bill which I seek to bring in is an attempt to implement what was clearly the sense of the House on that occasion.
It was widely expressed that in a democratic community Government processes should, so far as possible, be carried on subject to the scrutiny of the people. Without publicity there can be no proper control of elected bodies; and it was felt that the local authorities, in particular, should take a proper and wider cognizance of public opinion. But public opinion cannot be expressed in an enlightened way unless it is an informed opinion. An enlightened public opinion is not only a safeguard against corruption, but is also a safeguard against what is probably a much more serious danger than corruption in our public affairs—it is the only proper protection against "bumbledom".
The other important aspect emphasised on the occasion of that debate was the importance of educating public opinion in these matters. It is quite clear that members of the public themselves cannot take complete responsibility for the steps necessary in these matters. They must be provided with eyes and ears, and they rely on the Press for that. In fact, in purchasing a newspaper, a member of the public is really employing a reporter to be his eyes and ears; to go into public meetings, particularly meetings of local authorities, to garner the information needed for him to inform himself and make up his mind.
On the other hand, of course, there is the danger of anybody exercising deliberative and executive functions having a tendency to secrecy, a temptation to mystery-

mongering. There was a time when this House forbade any report of its proceedings, but, happily, those days are long passed. But it was only comparatively recently, in 1908, that an Act was passed which provided similar publicity for meetings of local authorities; an Act which provided that representatives of the Press should be admitted to meetings of local authorities as defined.
Unfortunately, that Act is out of date and there are many gaps to be filled. In the first place, some local authorities deliberately seek to evade it. Only a minority do so, but there are some local authorities which do that. The 1908 Act did not extend to meetings of committees; and, therefore, nothing is easier than for a local authority desiring to derogate from the spirit of the 1908 Act, to meet in committee of the whole council and to come there to all its decisions, and then merely to report them to an open meeting of the council.
Secondly, many public functions formerly exercised by local authorities are now exercised by other public bodies. For example, in 1908 many gas and electricity undertakings were carried on by local authorities. Today, so far as public opinion is concerned, reliance must be placed on the consultative councils of the industries, and the Press has no right, under the Statute, to attend the meetings of such bodies. Then again, in 1908, the appropriate local education authorities were expressly open to the Press. Today, under the 1944 Act, the authorities are not so open. They do not fall within the scope of the 1908 Act. Finally, the Press cannot do its job properly unless it knows in advance what is to be discussed, and is provided with a copy of the minutes and the agenda.
The Association of Municipal Corporations has, in the past, discountenanced, the sort of measures, which I have described, which are taken to evade the Act: but they still continue. There is a considerable variation among local authorities regarding the amount of publicity which they permit. It varies between one authority and an adjacent authority, and the variations run right across party differences.
The aim of the Measure which I seek to bring in, with the support of hon. Gentlemen in all parts of the House, is to restore the position as it was in 1908,


and to extend it. Opinions may differ as to the precise scope, and as to where one should stop. Clearly, for some deliberations it would be undesirable to have publicity. The sort of matters which I have in mind will immediately occur to hon. Gentlemen, such as discussions about children who are in the care of the local authority.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: And contracts.

Mr. Simon: Yes; the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) mentions contracts. This Measure would provide the same safeguards as are to be found in the 1908 Act, to the effect that the Press may be excluded by resolution from the discussion on any particular item.
As I said, the proposed Measure has the support of hon. Members of all parties. It has also received the support of the National Association of Local Government Officers, to which I attach great importance. It seeks to bring about enlightened democratic public opinion, which is an important element in the preservation of civil liberty. As this House is the nursery of much of the civil liberty that exists in the world today, I humbly ask, with confidence, that I may be given leave to bring in this Measure.

Mr. Charles Pannell: I want to express a point of view contrary to that of the hon. and learned Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Simon). I have spent a lifetime in local government. I do not know whether the hon. and learned Gentleman has had much experience on the elective side of local government. My authority for speaking is that I have been a member of four local authorities in my time.
It is rather odd that we should be asked to bring this principle into the public sector of government, when I have never seen anything coming from the Government side of this House to suggest that we should pry more into the affairs of private companies. The hon. and learned Gentleman represents a party that never publishes its balance sheet. There have been suggestions in the House that the Tory Party should publish its balance sheet in exactly the same way as does the Labour Party. When I stand for election, the source of my election expenses

is well known, locally and nationally. We can never be sure about the Tory Party.
When the Tory Party came back, in 1951, the first Bill it introduced raised the question of the licences of public houses in the new towns. Questions were asked why the President of the Brewers' Society had taken the place of the President of the Band of Hope Union upstairs. It was suggested that there had been an Election contribution of £100,000 from the Brewers' Society to the Tory Party. That has never been denied in this House. This is the party that now comes forward as the custodian of liberty so that local government shall be decent and everything shall be seemly and open to the public.
It seems to me that the basis of all democracy should be equity. We ought to have a general enabling Bill that would bring the rights of the Press into the company board meeting so as to prevent abuses such as the Dockers. When all is said and done, does the Press deserve to go into public meetings? Read the average local newspaper. Can we find out whether the local Press deals with matters of grave public concern, or whether it does not rather tend to reduce local government to the ridiculous?

Mr. Ellis Smith: It depends upon the type of Press.

Mr. Pannell: It depends also upon the local council. There can be no question that there is a case for a reasonable reticence on the part of local government bodies, not only about the protection of children but on staff matters, when discussing the normal relations with the staff, and on questions of discipline within the local authority itself. Very often that sort of thing needs inquiry in committee and in camera. There is a case for publicity, but there is also a case, which is understated at the present time, for reticence.
The public is already very well protected, because local authorities have to go into open council. If there were a Bill limiting the local authorities' public discussion of matters dealt with in camera in committee that would be one thing, but this Measure lays emphasis on all committees of the council being open to the public. It is rather strange that this House, which is the master of its own


procedure and is very careful, on occasions, to protect by privilege its own Select Committees, should be asked to bring forward a Bill to lay an obligation on local authorities to open their affairs to the public.
This all springs from the curious air of condescension which comes from this House towards local government. I have protested against it before. The assumption is that somehow local councils are the junior partner in government while this House is the senior partner, that men who come to this House are cast in a different mould from councillors, and that councillors are not quite so good as we are and are not moved by the same standards or the same consideration of the public well-being. We had that atmosphere the other evening on a transport Bill, when it was suggested that nothing should be done in a great city like Leeds or London without the consent of the Minister, which really means a middle-placed official in the Civil Service. I object to that attitude towards local government.
I say to the Press, in relation to its treatment of this House, "I am not so sure that the Press deserves well of local government." What does the Press think of this House? Look at the average newspaper. Does it give a balanced summation of the political affairs of this House? It will give a fairly good report of the hon. and learned Gentleman's speech, not only because it is a good speech but because it is generally in the interests of the Press. Look at the average organ of the Press today; is it really catering for an intelligent democracy? I am not blaming the gentlemen who look after our affairs in this House—the Lobby correspondents and the reporters—but the editors who may have to consider what is fit for

publication, and the newspaper proprietors generally.
I hope that Government supporters will not forget what I have often said before, that it is sometimes a good thing for us that the tripe that goes into the Press today wraps up the fish and chips tomorrow. I take a strong view of these things and that remark is not entirely derisory.
It may be said that the party system is responsible for the news treatment of what we put out and in the treatment of back bench speeches. Back benchers get no show in this House. I notice that my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) is belatedly coming out as a champion of the back benchers.
I condemn the proposed Measure as an expression of intolerance towards local government. Because I want local government to be an equal partner with Parliament, because I fundamentally believe that private activities of companies should be equally open to scrutiny with public activities and so should the accounts of the Tory Party, I ask my hon. Friends to reject the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Simon, Sir R. Grimston, Sir L. Plummer, Mr. Grimond, Sir L. Heald, Mr. J. Rodgers, Mr. G. Darling, Mr. Fletcher-Cooke, Mr. Kirk, Mr. Benn, Miss Vickers and Mr. Donnelly.

PUBLIC BODIES (ADMISSION OF THE PRESS TO MEETINGS)

Bill to provide for the admission of representatives of the Press to the meetings of certain bodies exercising public functions, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 172.]

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) (No. 2) BILL

Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

SEYCHELLES (ADMINISTRATION)

4.22 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I wish, on the Third Reading of this Bill, to raise with the Colonial Secretary the question of maladministration in the Seychelles Islands. I think it might be convenient if I divide what I have to say under five heads of maladministration: first, the deplorable social conditions leading to much injustice; secondly, the incompetence, particularly the financial incompetence, of Government Departments there; thirdly, the considerable complaints about religious discrimination against non-Catholic inhabitants; fourthly, questions of injustices arising out of the administration of justice generally; fifthly, the question of the lack of faith which has been expressed in the Chief Justice.
For the benefit of those hon. Members who are not aware of the general conditions in the Seychelles, may I remind the House that the Seychelles are an archipelago consisting of about 97 islands, some of which are uninhabited. The total population is about 36,000. Most of the adults are illiterate and about a third of the children are illegitimate. It has long been recognised that it is not a particularly easy Colony to administer. Nevertheless, the facts that have come to my knowledge are such that cannot possibly excuse, in my submission, the neglect and injustice which is taking place in those islands.
With the indulgence of the House, I would prefer merely to read a short selection of the letters which I have been receiving on this subject, some from reputable inhabitants there, others from distinguished visitors in recent months to the Seychelles. One typical letter is from

Mr. Mullery, a very respected resident. His comments are typical of those of many. He writes, quite recently:
Outside a small clique, all persons here with even a slight knowledge of the place, are agreed that a cleaning-up is badly needed.
You will not need to be told that British prestige has been sinking to a low ebb everywhere, and the Colonial Office seems to aim at depressing still more that prestige, or what remains of it.
I had recently a quite unsolicited letter from Lord Modreeny, a distinguished ornithologist, who had visited the Seychelles. He wrote to me:
… I went with the idea of a holiday in Paradise,' but after a few days discovered to my horror that it was more like 'Hell,' so I decided to investigate the whole position on foot and not by car, also, without being conducted but entirely alone, and this is what I found.
The people are British subjects and entitled to British passports. However, if the lower classes wish to leave the islands to seek work on the mainland they have to deposit £50 … The Governor is not interested and does not help in any way, so that the poor people have to rely on friends on the mainland, which is more or less impossible, or trust an Indian merchant to transmit the money for them.
I interpose to remind the House that apart from 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. of the population which is descended, or some of them, from the French slave-owning community which occupied the islands in years gone by, the large majority of the inhabitants are not only illiterate, but very depressed. There is not only considerable overcrowding, but difficulty in getting work and, not unnaturally, there is a great tendency to emigrate if they can. One of the suggestions made by my correspondents is that attempts to emigrate are resisted in the interests of the landowning and employing sections of the community. Lord Modreeny continues:
The men are usually employed on the coconut plantations from morn to dusk at a wage of £3 to £4 per month. Food such as fish and bananas is cheap but meat, etc., is very dear. Therefore, there is little variety, as wages do not permit of the slightest luxury … men … live like rats in very small houses of wood with rooms so small that a bed alone would fill them. Can you imagine such conditions in a British 'Paradise', sanitary arrangements being the sea? I walked along the road adjoining the sea and this is what I saw. I entered into talk with some of these poor people and I could go on writing pages on this sort of thing …
As regards maladministration, a very startling thing happened while I was there. The Governor had just returned from holiday, but


not one person turned out to cheer him and even the fishermen on the pier took no notice or lifted their hats, yet the town was decorated for his return …
I want to pass from that, as a general background, to the widespread complaints of financial maladministration in the islands. In support of that, I do not think that I can do better than to quote from an official Government publication, namely, the Report of the Principal Auditor on the Accounts of the Colony of the Seychelles for 1954. This Report has just been published. It is replete with charges and criticisms of the way in which the public affairs of the Colony are conducted. I propose merely to select at random a few paragraphs from it.
Paragraph 1 states:
The manner in which the accounts for the year under review have been kept and rendered cannot be regarded to be wholly satisfactory in view of the adverse comments in this Report and of the large number of queries it was found necessary to issue.
Then, paragraph 4:
… it was necessary to issue a large number of queries in connection with the faulty assessment of customs duties, warehouse rent, and misinterpretations of the Customs Tariff.
Paragraph 8 deals with education:
Owing to the inadequate manner in which the departmental accounts for the Trade Technical Centre had been kept it was not possible to carry out a satisfactory audit of these accounts …
Paragraph 9 deals with Inland Revenue, and states:
Due to the manner in which certain Revenue Registers were maintained it was not possible to verify in audit that all the Revenue due to Government had been collected.
The next is a serious one. Paragraph 15, dealing with the Treasury, reads:
The standard of examination of vouchers in the Treasury cannot be regarded as adequate. During the year under review it was necessary to issue numerous queries for erroneous claims for transport and travelling and for certain payments in respect of which no authority existed at the time the payments were made.
Paragraph 16 is equally significant, although the charge it contains is somewhat vague. It reads:
Following the revision of salaries in 1954 many queries were issued regarding the wrong conversion of certain officers. In every single case where an officer was erroneously converted to a salary higher than the correct one, retrospective approval was given for these officers to remain on that salary.

I do not want to weary the House, but there is a whole section dealing with checks against irregularity and fraud.

Mr. James Johnson: I think my hon. Friend would agree that there are no less than 726 items which are in doubt, some going back to 1951, and that the Auditor says that he cannot find evidence to ascertain where the amounts involved have gone.

Mr. Fletcher: That is so.
What I think even more significant is this. This is a matter of public knowledge and public comment in the islands themselves. Indeed, the leading paper there, Le Seychellois, in its issue of 2nd June, 1956—which appeared after the 1954 audit had come out—comments even more scathingly. The writers realise, from their inside knowledge, that the Government Auditor had not gone far enough, because this is what they say:
There is much evidence in the Report itself that the tardiness of its issue was caused by difficulty which the Auditor encountered in obtaining from most Government Departments the information and documents necessary for its formulation…. The Report is packed with examples of departmental sloth and of contemptible standards of office work, interlarded with implied censures of departments as collectors, guardians or spenders of public revenue. The judgment quoted is an example of under-statement stretched to the point of being irritating.
Another comment is this:
The Report comprises 107 paragraphs. The great majority of them are concerned with instances of inaccuracy, or incompetence, or carelessness or even fraud on the part of some one or more members of departmental staffs. In the first 19 of the paragraphs, there are seven references to some instances of sloth on the part of some department or officer
There is a great deal more in the same strain, but I hope that I have read enough on that part of the subject to justify the demand which we are making in this House, on behalf of the inhabitants of the Seychelles, for an independent inquiry into the whole conduct of the administration there.
I now want to say a word about discrimination against non-Roman Catholics. I have had a good deal of evidence of that, and in some cases it is bound up with what appears to me to be a total disregard for the elementary considerations of justice. I will cite only one case that has come to my notice, although it is only one of several.
There was a girl called Yokoro, aged 15, in a Government-aided school at La Digue. She was flogged by the school master, Mr. Emanuel Durup. She was examined by the medical officer. The medical report describes in detail the evidence, the imprints of a cane, and it is clear that the flogging was brutal. The police inspector for that district, Inspector Baillon, said that the girl's mother had suffered terribly.
Inspector Baillon made no attempt to hide the evidence or to suppress it. However, when the corporal of police went to see Mr. Durup, Mr. Durup denied that he had beaten the girl. Nevertheless, there were at least five witnesses to the fact. The police officer informed the director of education, but orders were sent by Mr. A. Sauzier, the Acting Attorney-General, to the effect that no prosecution was to take place.
That is extraordinary when one bears in mind the large number of prosecutions taking place in the Seychelles every month for a great many cases of pilfering and things like that. Indeed, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, one of the complaints about the maladministration of justice is that a large number of prison sentences are inflicted on labourers for breach of contract, i.e., because they have not performed some duty of service to their employer. When one recalls that, in years gone by, this was a slave-owning community, and that a great many of the illiterate poorer people are descendants of slaves, one is shocked at illustrations that occur of some tendency on the part of those in authority not only to try to revert those people to conditions of semi-servile existence, but also to condone such conditions when they are known.
So that the Secretary of State may inquire into precise cases, I will give him the names of merely four such labourers about whom this complaint has been made.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): May I ask the hon. Gentleman how long he has had those particular names? I ask because it would, of course, have helped me if I could have had the precise names before the debate.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: The Secretary of State could have made inquiries himself.

Mr. Fletcher: I will give them. They are Mr. Michard, Mr. Bastienne, Desnoussnes, and Billy Marie.
I now turn to what is, perhaps, the most serious of all the grievances from which the inhabitants of these islands are suffering, and that is the complete lack of confidence in the Colony in the Chief Justice. In approaching this part of the case, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I am, of course, aware of the Ruling which was given by Mr. Speaker on Monday, and in what I say I propose to make no reflections on the Chief Justice himself, because Mr. Speaker ruled that to do so would be out of order on the Consolidated Fund Bill. I think I ought to add that I regret that Ruling, because I feel that, in fairness to the Chief Justice, I should at some time have an opportunity to give precise chapter and verse for what I said at Question Time the other day, and, if necessary—

Mr. Bevan: It is the right hon. Gentleman's fault.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher). I think that the exemplary calm and dignity shown by the Chief Justice in not answering the charges makes it all the more important that I should be able on an appropriate occasion to deal with them in this House, but I cannot do so in any detail unless a substantive Motion is tabled. The tabling of that Motion is in the hands of the Opposition, should hon. Members opposite wish to do that.

Mr. Bevan: The right hon. Gentleman will get it.

Mr. Fletcher: I was proposing to say that it will be my intention to table such a Motion unless, as I hope, the Colonial Secretary is able to give us a satisfactory assurance today in reply to the criticisms which we shall make of his action.
As Mr. Speaker ruled, I am in order on the Bill in commenting upon what I regard as the grave dereliction of duty on the part of the Colonial Secretary in ignoring the petition sent to him in October, 1954, for the removal of the Chief Justice. For the purposes of this argument, I do not mind whether the charges formulated in the petition are right or not. Our complaint against the Colonial Office is that it has quite unwarrantably ignored a


responsible petition signed, in not particularly easy circumstances, by a very large number of the inhabitants of the islands. As I want to challenge the Colonial Secretary upon this, I must read the petition and his reply. The petition was sent to the Colonial Secretary through the Governor.

Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn: What was the date of it?

Mr. Fletcher: It was October, 1954. The petition reads:
Your Excellency,
1. We the signatories present this Petition with the one plea that Mr. M. D. Lyon, Barrister-at-Law, be not returned for yet a third tour as Chief Justice to this Colony; we believe his return to be imminent. We submit, first, that three tours as Chief Justice of this very small island is more than any man can carry out with that aloof independence and strict impartiality which the office necessarily demands.
It will be observed that there is no criticism of the individual. It is a perfectly general request, that nobody should be asked or expected to serve three tours of office in the Seychelles.
The petition goes on:
But it is commonly said that Mr. Lyon must remain here till he is superannuated, several years hence, for the simple reason that no other Colony will accept him in any circumstances or in any office. We can hardly believe that responsible authority should adopt so tolerant, indeed, so supine an attitude in such a matter to the detriment of the Colony and of the British name.
2. The public and frequent drunkenness of Mr. Lyon in this small place is now a byword and a scandal, and we consider that this failing alone renders him unfit for his high office We have reason to believe that his drunken conduct has more than once been reported to Your Excellency: a sorry local jest relates how that the wise, observing his approach of an evening, take hasty steps to conceal all but a very little of their liquor. That he constantly drives his car under the influence of alcohol is notorious, but the police dare not interfere; they have allowed him to drive his car without rear-lights or a rear number plate, and indeed, throughout April of this year, when he went on leave, without even a motor tax licence.
3. We have no access to records; but we believe that all his orders taken in appeal to the High Court of Mauritius … every one has either been reversed or so greatly modified as to be tantamount to reversal. These facts can be officially verified, and it would be interesting to know what opinion the Hon. High Court of Mauritius entertains of Mr. Lyon as a judicial officer. We have studiously refrained in this Petition from citing any private complaint against Mr. Lyon in this context.

I ought to add—it is, perhaps, of the greatest significance—that the petition was signed by a large number of leading citizens. Obviously, it was very difficult for anybody occupying any official position in the island to sign the petition itself, particularly if they were on the Bench, but, as the Colonial Secretary knows perfectly well, the petition was accompanied by a confidential document signed by—I think it is right to give the names—Mr. Douglas Bailey and Sir Michael Nethersole, K.B.E., C.S.I., C.I.E., D.S.O. As I understand, they are the only other judicial officers in the island.
In their accompanying note they say:
We have refused to sign this Petition only because one of us … is a Justice of the Peace and the other … is a petty stipendiary Magistrate; these circumstances apart, we both would have signed the Petition itself without hesitation, for we sympathise with and approve of it.
If anything could be more condemning than that, I do not know what it is.
To complete the record, I ought to read the very curt reply sent by the Colonial Secretary to those who signed the petition. The reply was dated 10th December, 1954. It read:
I have the honour to refer to this office letter advising you that the Petition sent by you and various other signatories concerning the Chief Justice, Mr. M. D. Lyon, has been forwarded to the Secretary of State. I am directed to inform you that the Petition has been given the most careful consideration by the Secretary of State, but that he is unable to accede to the request therein.
Why was that? The Colonial Secretary, who sends Archbishop Makarios to the Seychelles presumably because he thinks it is the kind of place where justice is well administered, declines for no reason to accede to that perfectly proper and reasonable request signed by the inhabitants of the island.
The charge I make against the Colonial Secretary is this. Given, as I have told the House, the peculiarly difficult social, economic, climatic, and perhaps even historic conditions, in the Seychelles, I should have thought that it was more necessary than ever that, if there was one part of the Colonial Empire where justice should be above suspicion, it would be there. Yet, the Colonial Secretary, with knowledge of this widespread public opinion, defies that public opinion.
One asks why it is. First, it is due to the Colonial Secretary's innate inability


to have regard to the best interests of any of the Colonies for the administration of which he is responsible.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Bevan: Yes.

Mr. Fletcher: What did the Colonial Secretary have to test the Chief Justice about? He had to test the interests of one person on the one hand, or, on the other, the well-being of the whole community. The Colonial Secretary may well tell us, as the petitioners told us, that the Colonial Secretary found it difficult to move Mr. Lyon to some other Colony, because no other Colony would have him. If that was so, he should have pensioned him off, or, if not, he should have given him some pro rata pension. There is no excuse for it. The Colonial Regulations, to which Mr. Speaker referred the other day, lay down precisely upon the Colonial Office an obligation for dealing with cases of this kind.
Colonial judges appointed by the Colonial Office are in quite a different category from judges of the High Court here. Judges of the High Court here are protected by the Act of Settlement. They are removable only on a Resolution passed by both Houses of Parliament. Colonial judges have no such protection. They are subject to removal for incompetence or corruption or any other offence, and, indeed, ought to be removed.
The Colonial Regulations, to which Mr. Speaker referred me, in Regulations 63, 68 and 76, lay down a precise code of procedure whereby the Colonial Secretary can act in complete fairness to the Chief Justice. The Regulations provide for a disciplinary procedure, but where a judge is appointed by letters patent and where there is any reason to feel that he should be removed, or ammoved as the Regulation for some reason puts it, there is a code of procedure, and an appeal lies to Her Majesty in Council. It would be open to the Colonial Secretary to accede to that request, and he knows perfectly well that that is what he ought to have done. He ought not to be forced by the painful duty of ventilating these matters in this House to take a step which he ought to have taken months ago.
I do not want to prolong this speech. I think that I have said enough to satisfy

the House on two things—that there is, first, an overwhelming case for an independent review of the whole administration of the Seychelles Islands, and, secondly, that the Colonial Secretary was very gravely at fault in not having acceded to the petition for the removal of Mr. Lyon.

4.54 p.m.

Mr. Gilbert Longden: The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) has certainly presented a very grave indictment of the Administration in the Seychelles. Speaking for myself, I hope that what he said was very much exaggerated. I cannot help feeling that, having been thwarted from being able to attack the Chief Justice, who was his original quarry, he has been constrained to dig around and try to find some ammunition in order to shoot at my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary. At any rate, that is what I hope.

Mr. Bevan: The important point is that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) quoted from documents. The documents are either accurate or inaccurate. That is what matters.

Mr. Norman Dodds: They are official documents.

Mr. Longden: I am trying to suggest, in response to the intervention of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), that they are inaccurate—that at any rate, not the official documents, but the letters are inaccurate. That is what I am trying to suggest. I have one thing in common with the hon. Member for Islington, East. I think I am right in saying that neither of us has ever been to the Seychelles, so that all the information which we are able to give to the House is second-hand.

Mr. Dodds: They were official documents.

Mr. Longden: I shall try to do something to redress the balance. I do not believe that everything is as black as the hon. Gentleman has painted it in these islands. I recall that General Gordon described them as the original Garden of Eden, but the hon. Gentleman is now trying to make the House believe that a considerable number of


snakes have crept in since that time. Certainly, it is the case that—
every prospect pleases
in the islands, but the hon. Gentleman would have us believe that—
only man is vile.
I think it is a little unfortunate that matters of Colonial administration such as this should be the subject of party dissension. A very similar debate about these very same islands was held in this House in June, 1949, when the two parties were on different sides of this Chamber. That debate can easily be referred to. May I try to put the picture in perspective?
These islands contain under 40,000 inhabitants, including children. The size of the largest island, which is the only large island, is seventeen miles by six miles. In other words, we are discussing a territory which is perhaps as large as half the average constituency in this country. Being so small, its resources are similarly small. The national income is about £25 per head, which is only one-third, for example, of the national income of an island such as Mauritius. The total revenue is £300,000, and the total expenditure about the same.
What have we done there? The hon. Member for Islington, East listed five heads of indictment against the Administration of these islands, and, first, he cited the social conditions. What have we done or tried to do with the resources that we have at hand? I have had to supplement my information from the Report on the Seychelles for 1953–54, and everything is not as black as the hon. Gentleman painted it. In relation to health, we find that the birth rate has risen and the death rate has decreased, and that there are seven Government medical officers of health in charge of the islands' health, which is a very large proportion for that population. That is in addition to four dentists, and of course the private practitioners. There are four hospitals, in addition to a mental hospital and a leper colony, and a tuberculosis sanatorium is being built.
When we turn to the aspect of education, we find that there is a very large number of schools. I am afraid that what the hon. Gentleman said about illiteracy was true, but I cannot but think that it must be getting less very rapidly, because there is a large number of

schools in the island, apart from the private schools which are run by the various religious denominations. There are five Government schools, including two grammar schools and two secondary modern schools. So far as I can judge, there is an adequate number of teachers, and next year there will be a teachers' training college.
As for labour, the hon. Member for Islington, East is right when he says that there is difficulty about people getting work, but I do not think it is right or fair for him to charge the Government of the Seychelles with a lack of interest and a lack of effort in getting work for people. There are development schemes in the islands for building, for roads and for smallholdings, but I dare say that the best development of all would be if the tourist trade could be encouraged to come to these beautiful islands. That could only be done if the external communications were made much better than they are now.

Mr. J. Johnson: How does the hon. Member suggest that we could employ almost 2,000 ex-Service men, including Pioneers from the Suez Canal area and elsewhere, who have returned to Mahe and are unemployed?

Mr. Longden: I do not think it is my duty to do that. What I am trying to persuade the House is that the Government of the Seychelles are trying to do these things. I did not think there were as many as 2,000 of those men, but certainly that makes the problem more difficult. I think there are about 1,500 of them.
The second of the hon. Member's heads of indictment was that my right hon. Friend had sent out to the islands—the initiative was his—an officer to report and audit the accounts. As the hon. Member himself said, the Report of that officer has only just been published.

Mr. J. Johnson: It is the normal course.

Mr. Longden: I admit that it is the normal course, but this officer was sent while my right hon. Friend was Colonial Secretary, and he has just published his Report. I am not trying to deny the statements made in the Report, some of which were read to us by the hon. Member. What I am saying is that the Report


has just been published, and I have no doubt whatever that steps will be taken by my right hon. Friend to put right the matters complained of, so far as can be done in so small a community where standards are obviously much lower than they are here.

Mr. Stephen Swingler: Has the hon. Member read the Report of the Principal Auditor who was sent out? If so, does he not consider that it constitutes a prima facie case for a commission of inquiry owing to the obviously shocking state of maladministration which it reveals?

Mr. Longden: I must not deceive the House. I have not read the Report in full—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—but I have glanced at it and have heard many extracts from it, not only today but before. I am not here to deny them but I consider that my right hon. Friend is quite as capable as any commission of inquiry of putting them right. There may be a case for a fiscal review in the islands.
The third head on the hon. Gentleman's list was that there was religious discrimination. I do not know whether that is so, but what I do know is that 90 per cent. of the population in the islands are Roman Catholic; and when there is a position like that, it is at least within the bounds of possibility that some discrimination may be seen.

Mr. Gordon Walker: But it should not be official.

Mr. Longden: I agree that it certainly should not be official. What I have heard this afternoon does not convince me that it is official.
In his remarks about the Chief Justice, the hon. Member read the petition, protesting the whole time that he was not making any allegations against Mr. Lyon. I do not know whether he thought that the petition was a testimonial. In the circumstances, it would have been more honourable if the Opposition had put down a substantive Motion.

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Member will be aware, if he has followed the proceedings, that in this respect the Opposition have been gravely handicapped by Mr. Speaker having given two opposite Rulings, with a weekend intervening.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): Mr. Speaker made it perfectly clear on the first occasion that he had been taken unawares and had to look into the matter.

Mr. Bevan: What I am pointing out is that when charges are made by the Minister, and followed up by his supporters behind him, that the Opposition have not taken the step of putting down a substantive Motion, it is within the recollection of the House that I took a different view from Mr. Speaker last week, and Mr. Speaker was wrong. Last week, he held that we could attack the Administration for the behaviour of the Chief Justice. It did not seem to me that we could attack the Chief Justice as a judicial person without a substantive Motion. Mr. Speaker, however, took the view that we could do so administratively. On Monday, he altered the Ruling. The weekend had intervened.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am not aware of the various Rulings but if anybody wishes to criticise Mr. Speaker he must put down a substantive Motion. We cannot have things like that said here.

Mr. Swingler: Is it not a fact that not until Monday did Mr. Speaker give his Ruling that the matter must be dealt with by a substantive Motion and the Adjournment of the House on Thursday of this week had already been announced? From that point of view it has been impossible for the Opposition to put down a substantive Motion before the House adjourned.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The point I was making was that on the first occasion Mr. Speaker said he was unable to give a Ruling but wanted to look into the matter, and that ultimately he gave a Ruling.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: To the best of my recollection, what Mr. Speaker did was not in any sense to make a Ruling, but to say that he would make inquiries as to who appointed the Chief Justice, the process by which he was appointed, how the appointment could be terminated and one or two other matters that arose in the course of discussion. He did not give a Ruling until the recent Ruling, which is the only one which has been given to the House.
I may be in error but I do not think it would have been impossible for the Opposition today, by arrangement, to have put down a substantive Motion. I share the view of my hon. Friend that that would have been a fairer thing to do. It could have been put down at the first opportunity. The Question by the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) was put down on 10th July and we are now in August. It would have been possible between then and now, even since last week, to have put down a substantive Motion, which alone would have given me the chance to deal properly with these allegations.

Mr. Swingler: Is it not a fact that to put down a substantive Motion for today would mean that the Opposition must take the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 2) Bill formally, thereby jeopardising the rights of all other hon. Members to raise other subjects?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think there is some confusion of language. Anyone can put down a substantive Motion at this moment.

Mr. Bevan: The Secretary of State would have said that it was far too late.

Mr. Longden: If I may, I should like briefly to end my speech. In justification of what I said on this subject originally, I should like to say that my recollection accords precisely with that of my right hon. Friend, and that it would have been perfectly possible for hon. Members opposite to put down a substantive Motion. If I am wrong, however, and it would not have been possible, I think it would have been better to leave the whole subject until after the Recess.
I said at the beginning of my remarks that I had not lived in or been to the Seychelles, but I have lived in small communities in other Oriental parts, and I am afraid it is true to say that they are rather subject to what Agatha Christie has called "the poison pen". They are rather subject to the sort of things we read about in the works of Mr. Somerset Maugham. I am quite certain that it would be perfectly easy to collect a few signatures in a community like that for or against anybody.
The hon. Member for Islington, East, no doubt inadvertently, misled the House when speaking of the petition as coming

from the inhabitants of the islands. Although I have not seen the petition, I do not think that that is so. Perhaps in the course of this debate we can be told how many signatures there were to the petition. [HON. MEMBERS: "Fifty."] One cannot say that they necessarily represent the inhabitants of the islands. I do not know Mr. Lyon, and nobody has ever written to me about him or about the Seychelles, but I am perfectly prepared to bet that if anybody went round to collect signatures there for a petition he could easily do so, and could easily collect many more signatures than that.
I think it is a very great pity that this official's name should be bandied about when there is not a proper opportunity to defend him, and when few people in the House know the true facts of this matter. I hope the House will not support the suggestion that a commission of inquiry should be sent out to the Seychelles.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. James Johnson: The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. G. Longden) said he had not been to the Seychelles. I have not been there either, nor has the Secretary of State; nor has any Secretary of State in the past been in the Seychelles. Does not this show that hon. Members should go out to these small, forgotten, neglected Colonies; where there is—as there certainly is in this instance—a small core, numbering perhaps a few thousands, of a French-speaking plantocracy; where there is no middle class, apart from a few Government servants; and, below this, masses of semi-literate plantation workers; as there are also, for example, in British Guiana and Mauritius? They are places which hon. Members should visit.
The Secretary of State would be well advised to listen to the damning indictment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), and, if he cannot send out a judicial inquiry, send out at least two Privy Counsellors, one from each side of the House, to find out exactly what is happening, because there is no doubt whatever amongst those of us who have listened to the speeches on this matter, and who have also had some access to letters sent to us, that there is a need for an inquiry.
My hon. Friend has described some of the circumstances of those islands. There are ninety-odd islands with a population of fewer than 40,000. When considering the petition asking that Mr. Lyon should not have a third term of office, we have to remember that the society in the islands is a very parochial society indeed.
We need not dwell too much on the question of liquor and parties and functions. There is no doubt whatever that in places of that size and in that sort of climate there is a good deal of that, even amongst officials, whether chief justices or otherwise. Liquor drinking was so prevalent in the Seychelles that the local Government forbade the growing of bacca from sugar cane and, as was done in the case of the Carlisle experiment in this country, the Colonial Government instituted Government-controlled liquor canteens. I will not talk about Mitchell and Butler's or Worthington or Guinness.
We must deny the allegations of hon. Members opposite that we on this side of the House are political scavengers. I hope that I am not regarded as a political scavenger or a muck raker. I am only saying what I say because I think that we in this House have a paramount duty to consider the interests of the people of the Colony: and not excluding the many black people, many the descendants of slaves, who have no one else to look after them and their interests. We on this side of the House who are interested in this Colony desire only honestly to say what we believe. We should not be scorned or smeared for trying to do so, but whether we are or not we intend to do the best we can.
I was talking a few days ago to a lady who knows the Seychelles very well indeed, and she had a solution to this difficult and knotty question. We took over the Seychelles, be it remembered, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. There is a French-speaking society, there are difficulties about religion, and there are other factors. At least 70 per cent. of those people have syphilis and gonorrhoea. There are social and economic problems. That lady's solution was, "Give it back to the French for a pound of tea."
I fear that that was a little cynical, as was also the suggestion made a few minutes ago by one of my hon. Friends

that we should make Archbishop Makarios the Governor of the Colony, as he is already out there. That was an extremely flippant and cynical remark. However, there is food for thought in the idea that, if we want a clean sweep, we should send out a new Governor, not a career civil servant, but, perhaps, a Member of this House or of another place for a term of office to clean the place up. That is one suggestion which the Secretary of State may bear in mind when, whether in the still watches of the night or at other times, he cogitates upon this and his many other problems.
The Secretary of State said that my hon. Friend should have put down a substantive Motion. He asked him why he did not tell him about the labourers he mentioned who had been taken to court for a breach of contract. I would remind the Secretary of State that there is nothing new in all this. I have been putting down Questions about the Seychelles for weeks, if not months. I put one down, not on 25th July, but as long ago as 18th April. I asked him:
How many labourers in the Seychelles have been sent to prison for six months or less for broken contracts of service within the last two years.
There was the right hon. Gentleman's chance to find out the names and who had gone to gaol. It is not good enough that he should try to fob me off by saying, as he did:
In Seychelles there is no provision in law for penal sanctions for breach of contract."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th April, 1956; Vol. 551. c. 74.]
The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that there are ways of going about this, and people are put in gaol in the Seychelles for refusing to go to an island like Coetivy, which may be a hundred miles or more from the mainland. If the Secretary of State was really doing his job he would not depend upon the phraseology of colonial laws, and he would find out what is happening and do something about it, however far away the Colony may be, whether a thousand or six thousand miles away.
There is nothing new in the question about the Auditor. I asked the right hon. Gentleman a Question to which I had a Written Answer yesterday:
Whether he is aware that the Report of the Principal Auditor for the Seychelles Colony Accounts for the year ended 31st December, 1954. was not issued until 24th January. 1956.


and that the tardiness of issue was due to the fact that the auditor found difficulty in obtaining from most Government Departments the requisite information and documents, and that the auditor was obliged to issue 726 queries some going back to 1951 with no action being taken."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st July, 1956; Vol. 557, c. 127.]
Nineteen fifty-one: that was five years ago. These things have been going on, and it is no use the House burking them. The Secretary of State should know about them.
The right hon. Gentleman really ought, as I suggested yesterday, to have another Minister to help him, for he is overwhelmed with work. There are forty and more Colonies and ten or a dozen major issues blowing up from Singapore and Malaya to Guiana. I say with the utmost good feeling that I think that he and his Department are being overwhelmed with work. We should not have debates like this, perhaps, if the right hon. Gentleman had another Minister to help him in his work. He has far too much work to do. I shall not say how well or how badly he is doing it, but the fact remains that he has a heavy physical burden of work to carry. If Scotland can have five Ministers and the Foreign Office five, the Colonial Office could have more than three to help with the enormous burden of work the right hon. Gentleman has to do day by day.
Without speaking for too long, I should like just to touch on two or three other small matters which the Colonial Secretary, in his high office, with all the cables coming in day by day, should know about. We find, time and again, whether we speak of Mr. Lyon, Sir William Addis, the Governor, Mr. Bonnetard or any of the other actors in this somewhat unsavoury, somewhat foul-smelling drama, there is an eminence grise, a lady whose name is Mrs. Delhomme. I do not want to quote any cloak-and-dagger stuff, but the Minister knows what I mean.
This lady is a member of the Legislative Council, and I hope that the Minister will inquire into this subject. It is alleged that in debates and in executive action inside the Legislative Council—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Might I say straight away, as the newspaper Le Seychellois has been quoted with approval, that it is her newspaper. I find it a little difficult to reconcile what I suspect is going

to be a charge against that lady with the obvious approval with which the hon. Gentleman has quoted one of her papers. She does an enormous amount of good work in the Colony. I hope that, prevented from attacking the Chief Justice in detail, the hon. Gentleman will not make personal charges, raised without warning, against other individuals.

Mr. Johnson: If I had been allowed to finish my sentence I should have said that this lady, who is always figuring in debates in the Legislative Council, and who is opposing this and that and the other, is part-owner of the Le Seychellois. I was about to say at least one good word in her favour. She has been attacking some of these abuses.
On the other hand, one could also quote many other less happy actions on her part. One need not be too personal, but let me refer to her actions in this matter of labour contracts, wages and so on. This is a Colony where copra fetches about 900 rupees a ton. It is said, and it is correct, that the planters could still make money if copra fell in price to 100 rupees a ton—if it fell to one-ninth of its present price. There is a low income tax and a low export tax. but this lady, Mrs. Delhomme, and people in her clique in the local plantocracy and in the Legislative Council, oppose an increase in the minimum wage of 22 rupees a month, which is about 33s.
I merely say this, in passing, about this lady—there are good and bad things about her, and I say this without attacking her personal affairs—that the Minister might look into this question of the action taken by ladies and gentlemen like her in opposing what are bare minimum demands by semi-literate workers who are not organised in unions and who need to be looked after in this House and by the Governor. I hope that the Minister will pay heed to this question of 33s. a month for workers when copra is making nine times as much in exports as the lowest amount at which it could be sold economically.
This is an important point to emphasise when speaking about the welfare of the Colony and considering how we can make it a better place, giving people jobs and decent living standards, schools and all the other things they need; building roads, a harbour and an air strip at Coetivy Island. I should like to say a


few words about that island. This lady, Mrs. Delhomme, owns it. A few days ago I asked a Question of the Secretary of State for Air. The R.A.F. surveyed the island last November and December, and I asked what had been done about it.
I am informed, rightly or wrongly, that there is an agreement whereby the island will be bought for about £1¼ million. I hope that the Minister will either confirm or deny what is happening. I should like to know whether an agreement has been made, and whether we are to have an airstrip on the island in case we ever have to leave Aden or any other nearby place. Perhaps the Minister would comment on that. It is not only a question of certain people making money by selling the island to the R.A.F.; it is also a matter of providing jobs for the unemployed in the Colony.
There are somewhat fewer than 2,000 ex-Service men who have come back after serving as pioneers in the Middle East. No more loyal Colony exists than this. These men volunteered well during the last war, but now they are unempolyed and there can be mischief here. There is a lot of discontent at the moment among ill-fed, unemployed men, who have known better conditions, better hygiene and welfare, when they were serving in the Army. These matters are fearfully important, Chief Justice or no Chief Justice. That is why we say that it is vital that the Minister should apply himself to this question, not only in the judicial sphere, but in all other spheres.
There is, for instance, the Savings Bank. Those finances ought to be inquired into. We talk about having an inquiry in Eastern Nigeria; I am told that the Savings Bank in the Seychelles might also need inquiring into. I ask the Minister to say something about that later.
I could say much more but many other hon. Members wish to speak. After what has been said about the Seychelles, I would only add that there is a smell here: do not let us deceive ourselves about it. Do not let us shirk the issue. An inquiry should be held—law courts and other matters apart. I hope that the Minister will bestir himself and do something in the very near future.

5.27 p.m.

Sir Frank Medlicott: Like most hon. Members who have spoken in this debate, I, too, have never visited the Seychelles Islands, but I can claim to have one qualification which I think no one who has spoken possesses, and that is that I have known Mr. M. D. Lyon for about twenty-five years. I have known him intimately and had many contacts with him both socially and professionally. In that sense, I must disclose what may amount to an interest, but I can also disclose some knowledge of what we are talking about.
I view this debate with great misgiving and with very great regret about the form that it has taken. Many of us were shocked by the gravity of the original allegations made against a gentleman holding high judicial office. Technically, the debate is quite in order and it enables hon. Members to discuss the affairs of the islands. The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) kept within the rules of order in what he said, but in my judgment he has, in effect, added to his original offence. In everything he said today about the defective conditions in the islands—the lack of roads, the lack of adequate schooling, the poor educational facilities and the inadequate way in which financial matters are dealt with—by implication he is suggesting that in some way all these questions should be placed upon the shoulders of the Chief Justice.

Mr. Bevan: No.

Mr. Swingler: May I ask the hon. Gentleman the same question that I put to his hon. Friend? Has he read the Report of the Principal Auditor which was published a couple of months ago on the state of administration in the Seychelles? It is an official Government publication on which a great number of the statements of my hon. Friend were based. It has nothing at all to do with the Chief Justice. It is an official Government publication on the state of administration in the Seychelles.

Sir F. Medlicott: The hon. Gentleman is not really following. I did not mention the Report.

Mr. Swingler: These facts come from the Report.

Sir F. Medlicott: That may be so. I have not mentioned the Report, and


therefore the hon. Member is not in a position to cross-examine me about it.
I have said that, in effect, this debate is an attack upon the Chief Justice. He is, by implication, held in some way to blame for these other matters. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Hon. Members may draw their own conclusions, but that is the conclusion I draw, and it is a point which I am entitled to make.
I now turn to the petition. I think that we can usefully examine the evidence upon which these charges have been laid against Mr. Justice Lyon, because we are in order in referring to the petition. In fact, it was read to us. In support of that petition, we were told that two legal gentlemen said that they would have signed the petition but decided that they ought not to do so in view of their legal position. Nevertheless, they did associate themselves with it because they wrote to my right hon. Friend and said that they sympathised with what was said in the petition.
The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) referred to these charges as being an indictment. I should like to know what the hon. Member for Islington, East, who is himself a very experienced solicitor, would have thought of an indictment framed in the terms of this petition. I think that he would have torn it to pieces. I want to give him an illustration.
In the course of the petition—and this is one of the facts by which we can test the value of the petition—reference was made to the appeals which had been made against the judgments of Mr. Justice Lyon, and the petitioners, supported by the two legal gentlemen, were obviously under the impression that the appeal situation was such as to cast a serious doubt upon the competence of the Chief Justice. [HON MEMBERS: "So it is."] Let us look at the facts instead of just repeating the hearsay which is so far all that we have heard.
It has been said by my right hon. Friend on two occasions in answer to lb Questions in this House—not only in this last week, because this is not a matter which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have been forced to raise at the last moment; such facts as exist have been known for some time past—that during the seven years —

Mr. Bevan: On a point of order, Sir Charles. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), when he made his speech, indicated that he was labouring under a difficulty—a difficulty which we would all like to have removed—that is, he was not striving to prove the accuracy or the inaccuracy of the statement made by the petitioners. If he had attempted to do that he would have immediately been in collision with the Chair because he would have been making an indictment against the Chief Justice. If no indictment against the Chief Justice can be made, then neither can there be a defence. Therefore, the hon. Member for Norfolk, Central (Sir F. Medlicott) is not in order in going outside that and saying that these appeals were or were not valid. In my submission, all that evidence is entirely out of order, otherwise we should ourselves be able to argue all the other evidence against the Chief Justice.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles Mat-Andrew): I think that I can answer that point of order. The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly wrong. If anyone wants to reflect on the conduct of a king or a queen, or certain persons, he must put down a substantive Motion. That is to reflect upon them, but if he wants to say something pleasant about them, there is no reason why he should not do so.

Mr. Bevan: What the hon. Member is proposing to do is to argue one of the heads of the indictment against the Chief Justice and to argue that that head is perfectly invalid. I agree that he is perfectly entitled to say what an amiable person the Chief Justice may be, what a fine cricketer he was, what a splendid father and what a friend he is, but what, in my submission, he is not entitled to do is to discuss the evidence whether the Chief Justice is or is not a good Chief Justice.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Further to that point of order. May I ask your advice, Sir Charles, on this matter? The hon. Member for Islington, West—[HON MEMBERS: "For Islington, East."] I apologise to Islington, West. The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), as a method of getting certain charges across, read out the petition. One of the statements in the petition was that there had been a disproportionate number of appeals from the Chief Justice which


had been won and that these facts could be verified. Is it in order for a statement of that kind to be made and that, when my hon. Friend is attempting to put these appeals in perspective, the right hon. Gentleman should leap to the charge and suggest that it is we, for a change, who are acting improperly?

Sir F. Medlicott: The hon. Member for Islington, East, who opened this debate, made, if I may say so, a very grave tactical error in reading out the petition because, as has been ruled from the proper quarter, it is in order to answer anything which is referred to in the petition. If I may be allowed to give the relevant figures and facts—and they are, after all, of some consequence—in the seven years during which Mr. Justice Lyon has been Chief Justice of the Seychelles, there have been tried by him 1,561 cases. [HON MEMBERS: "We have already had this."] There is no reason at all why hon. Members should not have it a second time.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of order, Sir Charles. I do not mind the hon. Member pursuing the argument in the way he is doing at all, provided that it is clearly understood that we are in order, therefore, to sustain the petitioners and then adduce the evidence against the Chief Justice. It is not, in my submission, in order for the hon. Member to argue against the accuracy of the charges if we cannot endeavour to prove their accuracy.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We often say things in this House of which we cannot prove the accuracy.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of order, Sir Charles. Perhaps my command of language is not good enough to enable me to make myself clear. The hon. Member is now proceeding to discuss the validity and accuracy of charges made by the petitioners. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East, in reading out the petition, said specifically that he was not in a position to do any other than call attention to the fact that a body of citizens in the Islands of Seychelles held these views about the Chief Justice and that that in itself constituted a reason for an inquiry by the Minister. He specifically said, obeying Mr. Speaker's Ruling—

Mr. Pickthorn: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to make another speech later on?

Mr. Bevan: On this point of order, Sir Charles, do you rule that the hon. Member is perfectly entitled to rebut the charges made against the Chief Justice?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: He is perfectly entitled to say nice things about him, but he is not entitled to reflect upon his character. [Interruption.] I have been asked for a Ruling, and I am going to give one. It is perfectly clear that if anyone wants to reflect upon the conduct of certain people, including myself for example, the only way that it can be done is to put down a Motion. On the other hand, if people like to say nice things about me, there is nothing wrong in that.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of order, Sir Charles. Arguing about the fate of appeals made against the Chief Justice to a higher court is not saying nice things about the Chief Justice. That is arguing about the evidence, extraneous to the character of the Chief Justice, and if the hon. Member is entitled to say that he is a very good Chief Justice, that his appeals are usually upheld and that he behaves properly in court and all that kind of thing, I say that that goes far beyond the character of the Chief Justice and that it is not saying nice things about his clothes or his eyes or his hair.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I did not say anything about my personal appearance. If one wants to reflect on the character of certain people in high places it can only be done by putting down a substantive Motion. If one is saying something pleasant or making what is normal criticism of him, not reflecting on him, one is quite entitled to do so.

Mr. E. Fletcher: On a point of Order. May I ask you, Sir Charles, whether I am right in assuming that if the hon. Member for Norfolk, Central (Sir F. Medlicott) says that there were 1,561 cases tried by the Chief Justice, it would be perfectly in order to retort that the overwhelming number of those cases were unappealable?

Mr. Bevan: Do you, Sir Charles, argue on that?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am not arguing with anyone. I am merely stating the case.

Sir F. Medlicott: The reluctance of hon. Members opposite to hear the figures is, of course, understandable. Out of 1,561 cases tried, only 14 were taken to appeal.

Mr. E. Fletcher: How many could have been appealed against?

Sir F. Medlicott: Listen to the facts. This is the best evidence—from the people of Seychelles themselves. We are not here discussing the conditions which would have arisen if an unduly large number of these cases had been upset on appeal. That is not the case at all. The fact is that only in 14 cases out of 1,561 did the islanders themselves see fit to complain against the kind of justice administered to them.

Mr. J. Johnson: rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member does not give way, he must be allowed to continue.

Sir F. Medlicott: I think I have been fairly generous in giving way. [An HON MEMBERS: "Not once."] It is no use the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) threatening me with what hon. Members opposite will say about the Chief Justice because of what I have said in his favour, because nothing worse could be said in this House against any man than what has been said against him already. Nothing else that can be said in this House could be otherwise than in his favour.
I want to pass now to a second point referred to in the petition, on which I thought we were going to have some very important and serious disclosures, the reference to lack of religious tolerance. I happen to be a Nonconformist, and I should be very much on the alert to hear of any discrimination exercised against the non-Catholic community. Although in starting his speech the hon. Member referred to religious discrimination, the reference tailed off and he failed to make any further mention of the matter. I suggest that it is very unfair to bring this question at all into what is, after all, a debate arising out of allegations concerning the conduct of the Chief Justice. It is unfair to bring in something concerning a schoolgirl having been beaten. What has that to do with what has come before the House in these attacks on the Chief Justice? There was no reference whatever to any connection between the treatment

of the schoolgirl and the alleged religious discrimination, and I feel that the hon. Gentleman should have taken his points a little further so that we should at least know what he is talking about.
There was a further point made in the petition which seems to me to show how badly it fails on the question of proof. This was the allegation that no other Colony would accept Mr. M. D. Lyon as Chief Justice. What evidence or what knowledge have the persons who signed that petition and the two magistrates who, in my view so unwisely, associated themselves with it, of the attitude of people in the scores, perhaps hundreds, of other areas in our great Colonial Territories as to whether they would or would not have this particular gentleman as Chief Justice?
During the course of the debate, or the Questions which gave rise to the present discussions, the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) said that the conduct of the Chief Justice was a matter of comment in the Colony day by day. We know what sort of tittle-tattle can go on in certain types of society. It has been wisely said that one can get people to believe anything as long as one whispers it. We know the sort of whispering campaign which has been going on against this fellow countryman of ours who has been trying to do a very difficult job in difficult circumstances. It seems to me that never has any accusation been brought against a member of the judiciary, or, indeed, against anybody else, on such flimsy and unreliable evidence.

Mr. J. Johnson: Will the hon. Gentleman take it from me that there are people who have lived in the Colony and who have come back and said these things? It is not just a matter of tittle-tattle in some bacca shop in Victoria, but of people talking to Members of the House, and of hon. Members having information given to them. We do not lightly make these charges in the House of Commons, believe me.

Sir F. Medlicott: It is because these charges have been made so recklessly that I feel I have to say these words in defence. A charge against a holder of high judicial office is one which should never be made without far more consideration and evidence than has been brought before us today.
I do not wish to detain the House any longer, except to end as I began, by referring to my own knowledge of this gentleman for over a quarter of a century. Perhaps I am influenced by the fact that when I first saw Mr. Lyon he was playing cricket for the Gentlemen. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that there is still some virtue in being a gentleman. In all this quarter of a century during which I have known him and his family, I have found that he has behaved with integrity and as one would expect a man to behave who occupies his high position. I am glad to have this opportunity of giving what is perhaps the only piece of first-hand evidence which the House has had today, because I deplore attacks made upon a man who is not in a position to defend himself.

5.46 p.m.

Mr. B. T. Parkin: It was certainly interesting to hear the closing remarks of the hon. Member for Norfolk, Central (Sir F. Medlicott), telling us of what was one of the deciding factors in his mind in inducing him to make his speech. I hesitate to think of what might have been the fatal effect upon the reputation of the Chief Justice if he had had the misfortune to be a professional cricketer. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Norfolk, Central ever worked as a professional lawyer or as an unprofessional lawyer, but I think it was rather unfortunate that he brought in that implication at the end.
It would be unwise to follow too closely the speech of the hon. Gentleman, because the Colonial Secretary, quite clearly, would prefer a debate in which he could come here as the champion of this much maligned English gentleman on the other side of the world, who has been the subject of most disgraceful allegations and who has no spokesman other than his master, the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I think it is important to have it quite clearly established that the Secretary of State is not the master of the Chief Justice. If that is once thought to be the true position, then much on which this House and the judiciary have fought over the centuries would be jeopardised.

Mr. Parkin: The Secretary of State is taking a very long time to find out exactly

what the position is. I should have thought that, if he really knew what the position was, he would have been able to pop round to Mr. Speaker a few days ago and explain what the true position was and what sort of debate we could have. Moreover, I should have thought that his own correspondence with hon. Members would have been very much shortened in the last year or two if he had had the true position quite clearly in his mind.
We are not today discussing the personal character of the Chief Justice of the Seychelles, but we are, I think, entitled to refer to an item in the petition which has been read out, which begs the Secretary of State to make a change on the ground that no man ought to serve three terms in the Colony today. We have had no answer and no reference whatever to that today. No man, be he angel, cricketer, drunkard, or King Solomon—who, if he had had the misfortune to lose his job in the Canal Zone at the present time and had read for the Bar and obtained the necessary qualifications could have gone to the Seychelles—could last more than a couple of years there without getting a reputation more like that of Judge Jeffreys or Mr. Justice Shallow.
We are, therefore, entitled to submit this afternoon that the Colonial Secretary has been dilatory in appreciating that aspect of the situation, that he really ought to have bestirred himself to look at the machinery which does place some of these servants of the Crown in a very difficult position in a very difficult part of the world. He ought really to answer that part of the submissions, that nobody should serve that length of time.
The Colonial Secretary, at least, knows how much hon. Members of the House have been disturbed over the last few years by visits and letters from all sorts of people who have come back from the Seychelles, or from those who are related to people who work there. These communications have referred to sometimes minor, sometimes major, administrative inefficiencies which are sometimes very near the scandalous. The Colonial Secretary knows all that because he has had to write a very large number of letters to hon. Members in which, on balance, he has always come down on the side of the man on the spot. That is understandable. But he cannot ride off with that


today, because it is his own responsibility to look at the administrative machinery which puts these men there.
A very large volume and variety of complaints and criticisms reach Members of this House, and we are thankful today that we can have a somewhat more leisurely discussion and put the case in more detail than is possible in the Question and Answer exchange of information. I hope that before this debate moves on to another topic, we shall get an assurance from the Colonial Secretary that he is seriously reflecting on how the Seychelles administration can be brought up to date and how people can be moved around more frequently from one job to another.
I should like to refer briefly to some of the cases with which the Colonial Secretary has dealt and some of the cases which have been brought to the attention of hon. Members. It is a strange thing that almost everyone who comes back from the Seychelles refers before long to the case of Tyndale Biscoe, upon which the Colonial Secretary must have an enormous file in his office. We know that that case cannot in law be reopened because Tyndale Biscoe himself made and signed a declaration to save himself from prosecution for criminal libel, but no one who has met him—and he is a person of some distinction, although he is always described as being somewhat eccentric in his views—casts any aspersion on his honesty and integrity.
When he attempted to defend a maid and ward who, in his view, had been the subject of an assault, and when he tried to get judicial steps taken to bring to justice those whom he thought were responsible for her seduction, he went through a pretty nasty experience. Of course he was unwise in rushing off to the medical officer and asking if the pregnancy could be terminated, which is a wrong thing to say in that part of the world because of the strict views which are held and because of the number of pregnancies which are obviously not terminated.
That was held against him. He was threatened with prosecution for having suggested that way out. But to any normal person that would seem a privileged thing to do, to approach an official and ask about it, in the same way that one would have thought that his

approaches not only to the Chief Justice but to the Governor were also privileged. But these facts were quoted and they were finally used to bring him down in very humiliating circumstances. I know that the case is closed in law, but it is frequently referred to by those who know the territory and who talk about it as an example of the sort of thing which can happen to a man.
The case of Mullery is another example of what happened to a man when the hounds got after him. I do not know where the references to the poison pen, referred to by the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. G. Longden) were directed, but some strange things have been said about Mullery in the same way as some strange things have been said about the Archdeacon. That is another case which is now closed, in the sense that Archdeacon Roach is not now in the Seychelles and is happily employed elsewhere.
It is a little doubtful whether private letters from the Governor are included in the suggestion of poison pens, which were referred to by the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West. It is a little tricky when the Governor writes to the Bishop of Mauritius and then seeks to defend himself by saying that he was not writing as the Governor but as a private individual. He was certainly in alliance with Le Seychellois, whose poison pen was working overtime when it referred to the fact that the Archdeacon was not returning. That, again, is in the Colonial Secretary's files.
The hon. Member for Norfolk, Central referred to the question of appeals. We ought to have some more information from the Colonial Secretary, irrespective of the personal character or competence of the Chief Justice, on how many of the offences dealt with by the Supreme Court—let us forget Mr. Lyon for the moment—are such that they can be appealed against, and with respect to those that can be appealed again, what is the cost of getting from the Seychelles to Mauritius or to East Africa to engage a barrister.
The Colonial Secretary will, no doubt, know of the death of bonne femme Marie towards the end of 1954, when he had to have a special inquiry. He is aware of the repercussions. I have no doubt that he knows the special report that was


sent in to him, and he will perhaps recognise the quotation:
I must say at once that this inquiry has been bedevilled from its inception by the bungling of the police.
These are matters that we can discuss here, irrespective of any one's personal character. This unfortunate woman is supposed to have been found drowned on a Saturday, buried on the Sunday and the police superintendent told about it on the Monday. This is a territory of 94 islands, where everybody is within reach of the sea, and the police have never been told the elementary means of determining whether a body found in the water is, in fact, the body of a drowned person. The most elementary precautions were not taken to ascertain whether evidence of drowning was present.
The magistrates had protracted inquiries, and, finally, came to the conclusion that bonne femme Marie could not have been drowned. But if she had not been drowned, what had happened to her? It is quite certain that under a moderately efficient police system a lot of the rumours which were set about would not have been started. The Colonial Secretary knows about this. He knows about the employer of this woman. He knows about the revolver which was taken away from him by the police and about the approach made to the Governor, indignant that the police should have made inquiries about the revolver. Fortunately, it was possible to establish that there were at least no bullet holes in the skull or the skeleton. The Colonial Secretary will know of this case, and I submit that the evidence which he has in the report on the inefficiency of the police would justify him taking the most energetic steps to improve their methods.
I should like again to refer to the methods of the police in the case of Mrs. Morley Green, who ran the hospital shop. The Colonial Secretary will perhaps know that she had herself asked for an audit of her stock and her finances. But surely it was no part of the duty of the clerk who finally came to conduct the audit to communicate with a policeman on his way back to the other island before he had reported to the public auditor.
The Colonial Secretary will know that the lady was charged with the theft of a thermometer worth 3s. 9d., whereas a

good deal later, when the auditor had conducted his work, it was discovered that there were many errors in the stocktaking, some in Mrs. Morley Green's favour and some against her. It was afterwards admitted that the stocks of insulin showed a discrepancy purely through a clerical error which the auditors should have disclosed. But before any of this, the police had taken action. How did it come about that that silly charge was transferred from the magistrates' court to the Supreme Court in a territory with a population half the size of my constituency, where a man is dressed up as a Chief Justice?
What is worse, this case over a 3s. 9d. thermometer went from that court to the Chief Justice's Court, so she had to try to borrow money from an Indian merchant to pay £22 10s. fee for a Queen's Counsel, M. Bonnetard. The case was adjourned and is still adjourned. We do not know anything more about it. Her name has not been cleared and the case has not been settled. Somebody ought to be in a position to do something about it. I have served under the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield (Air Commodore Harvey) before now and I know what he would have done. A few postings and a few changes of the training system and a few people livened up, and there would be a vast difference, and individual reputations would not be brought into the matter.
The Colonial Secretary replied to me about the case of Felix Baker, who was committed for contempt of court, The right hon. Gentleman sent back a letter scolding gentle Mrs. Collet for not knowing that the case was one which could not have been appealed against, and saying that she ought to have known that she could have consulted the court records. Why was she not told that in court? Rosetta Valentine, who jeered at a witness, was charged with contempt. Rosetta Valentine is still dead, is she not? The poor old lady got eight months for saying, "Moi baise on."

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That last statement, if not immediately answered or if I forget to answer it later on in the general stream of replies to the debate, might give a very erroneous impression. As I told the hon. Member, this woman was charged on two counts with wrongfully attempting to influence a witness during the preliminary enquiry, and not at all for jeering at somebody.

Mr. Parkin: Of course it was an attempt to influence a witness. Can hon. Members imagine what sort of discipline there is in this preliminary court? We know what the final outcome was in East Africa because someone had the money to see to it. This old woman of 70 disputed some evidence given by someone else, evidence which quite clearly was afterwards proved to be false, and so she passed a comment, as we here, interrupting an hon. Member opposite, might comment by no more than a gesture. She was then hauled up and sent to prison, and there she died. This will not do. It is no use the Colonial Secretary shaking his head and saying that it is all right. He would be shocked if any of these things happened even in the pettiest magistrate's court in this country and, of course, they would not happen.
To end on a lighter note, I should like to refer to the treasure story. The right hon. Gentleman did not answer me when I raised this matter on a previous occasion. Has he the answer now? Can the right hon. Gentleman envisage from this distance how this little society plans its work and how it must have heard that in other parts of the Commonwealth, great schemes were afoot for raising the standard of living by starting big irrigation schemes and the like?
What do they do in the Seychelles? I should like to read to the House a quotation from Le Seychellois. It states that a Captain Wilkins, who bought a share in the treasure hunt, had entered into an agreement with the Government. It added:
This document was between His Excellency the Governor, acting on behalf of the Government of the Seychelles, and Reginald Cruse Wilkins and Berthe Morel (the owner of the land on which the loot is believed to lie) It states, in effect, that in exchange for 10 per cent. of the total value of the treasure recovered, the Government will provide all necessary materials and labour for a period of four months at a rate not exceeding Rupees one thousand five hundred per month. The work is to be carried out under the supervision of the Superintendent of Public Works. Any capital value will be tax free, and if nothing is found during the currency of the agreement, the Government's participation will be automatically terminated and no claim made for the recovery of the amount spent in providing assistance.
The report continues:
Very soon after the signing of this agreement, a great change came over the scene. A squad of labourers commenced excavating

and blasting under the supervision of Captain Wilkins who was constantly on the site, having his meals brought out to him, a day and night police guard was also instituted and later, pumping machinery arrived to deal with the water.
Then they got something.
Towards the end … a further 'clue was unearthed—the headless body of a china-clay doll. The cryptogram had stated that at a certain spot the 'body of a woman' would be found.
Really! That is the contribution by the administration of Her Majesty's Colony of the Seychelles to colonial development and welfare. If quite a small town clerk did something of that kind and had work done by municipal employees in his back garden, the thing would be very properly brought up. The whole machinery of justice would be brought to bear upon him, but this apparently does not matter. The Colonial Secretary, apparently, takes the view that one must co-operate in that sort of society, and it does not do to annoy them. That is all very well, provided conditions are not changing.
But they will change. Half the children in the Seychelles are not at school. Somebody has given figures of the number of secondary schools, but how 260 scholars are spread over them I do not know. The Colonial Secretary says that 5,000 out of 9,000 children are at primary schools. Yet, they are beginning to learn. The people who come back from the Canal Zone will have something to say. They will not stay for ever under the old Creole régime. The Secretary of State has some responsibility, and he must make up his mind whether he is going to reform the administration or take the logical step of scattering on his files the gri-gri powder which is still used in the Seychelles and make his precautionary pact with the Devil.

6.9 p.m.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: I think that the House has listened with considerable interest to the shocking revelations made by the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). I am sure that we have been stirred by the accounts of corruption, mismanagement and maladministration of which so many of us have heard. It has become clear in the debate so far that no hon. Member who has spoken, and perhaps no hon.


Member of the House at all, has been to the Seychelles.
The last hon. Member about whose journey to the Seychelles I know is Mr. Thomas Reid, my predecessor in representing the constituency which I now have the honour to represent in the House. He went to the Seychelles as a financial commissioner on behalf of the Government of the day. I do not know whether, since that time, any hon. Member has been to the Seychelles, but it is high time not only that some hon. Members went there but, also, that one of the Ministers at the Colonial Office took the opportunity of going out there.
I intervene briefly in the debate for a very specific reason. I have been in communication with the Secretary of State for the Colonies for a number of months about a journey which I intend to make during the Recess to the Seychelles. I want to go to other places on the way, to Aden, Mombasa and perhaps to Egypt, and to go to the Seychelles partly because of the state of affairs about which we have heard in the debate, and partly because I want to look at one of the more prominent international figures who happens to be at present on that island.
The Archbishop of Cyprus was deported very suddenly when the talks with him were broken off, at the time when the Secretary of State and I were in Nicosia some months ago. As soon as the Secretary of State was good enough to write to me telling me of the deportation, I replied at once saying that I hoped that facilities would be given to me at a later stage to see the Archbishop in his place of detention.
Since that time the Secretary of State has tolerated some correspondence between myself and the Archbishop, and he was good enough to tell me that a letter which I wrote to the Archbishop the other day had been forwarded to Cyprus for consideration by the authorities. Whether it has been sent on, whether it will be censored, and whether it is the practice of the right hon. Gentleman to interfere in that way with the correspondence of Members of Parliament, has not been made clear.
At all events I followed this series of requests and discussions with the right hon. Gentleman by putting down a Question today asking whether he would allow

me to go to the Seychelles and see whomever I wanted to see there, including the Archbishop. I received a reply, the exact terms of which I do not have in my mind. in which the Secretary of State pointed out that recently his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had said that if the Archbishop of Cyprus made a declaration or statement regarding the use of violence in the island, a new situation would arise, and that until that new situation had arisen, he would prevent me from seeing the Archbishop in his present place of detention.
I find that difficult to understand. Some people might take the view that it was monstrously high-handed interference with the rights and privileges of Members of Parliament in the execution of their duty, but I can only deplore what I think is an unwise and incomprehensible decision which I do not begin to understand.
The difficulties standing in the way of the Archbishop making any kind of authoritative statement while he is in detention have been pointed out over and over again in this House. Indeed, one of the reasons why the Secretary of State said he had sent him to Mahé was to stop him making declarations which might influence the affairs of Cyprus. The right hon. Gentleman is beginning to realise that he cannot settle that problem without the participation of the Archbishop. He is beginning to realise that such is the influence and prestige of the Archbishop, largely built up by the fact that he has been exiled to Mahé. that he cannot do without him. But it is not reasonable for him at this moment to use the kind of language which will be interpreted in some quarters as blackmail to prevent the Archbishop meeting people with whom he might want to discuss and consult about the situation in Cyprus.
Therefore, I want to ask the Secretary of State a number of questions in relation to this situation. In the first place, how many people has the right hon. Gentleman in detention in the Seychelles at the present time? What are the powers under which he holds them there, and what are the conditions in which he holds them? We were told the other day that the Archbishop is now on parole, that he is free to go round the island and do anything he likes, provided that he does not


try to escape. Does this mean that on the day I arrive in the port at Mahé the Archbishop will be put back behind wire? Or does it mean that the Secretary of State will have me detained and deported, or perhaps locked up with the Archbishop? What are the steps he intends to take, and how does he justify this extraordinary threat to interfere with a Member of Parliament who, after all, is only trying to do his duty?
I think that the Secretary of State knows what my attitude is to the question of the use of violence in Cyprus. He also knows everything that I said to everybody concerned during the time I was in Nicosia, some of it while he was there, during those negotiations. I have been very careful to keep no secrets from him during any of this time, and he knows very well that what little influence I have with the Archbishop and other people in his part of the world I have been using in order to try to get a peaceful and fair settlement which will be in the interests of the people of the island concerned and of this country, to stop the violence and the constant loss of lives which is still going on. The Secretary of State knows that well, and what his purpose may be in trying to stop me, or other people, from consulting Archbishop Makarios at the present time defeats my imagination.
I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman what he says now about the purpose for which he has the Archbishop detained. Is it to punish him for misdeeds about which no evidence has been produced and about which no public charges have been made, and which the Archbishop has been given no opportunity to refute? Is it to humiliate him? Is it to try to destroy the position in which he now finds himself as leader of his people in Cyprus? That is an impregnable position, largely thanks to the act of exiling him to the island and making him into a national hero.
Is the right hon. Gentleman trying to humiliate the Archbishop? If so, it is an unwise game on the eve of the day when he will have to ask him to go back to Nicosia to help the Government out of the difficulties which they have got into. What justification can there be for interfering with his rights to communicate and discuss privately, if necessary, with people who might be able to have

some part in deciding what future line he takes?
As I have said, I find the position of the Secretary of State incomprehensible and I hope that he will take the opportunity provided by this debate, first, to make clear his purpose in making this extraordinary threat and, secondly, to tell us what powers he has to enforce it. I should also like to say that in the light of what the Secretary of State says I shall have to consider with my hon. Friends, between now and tomorrow, whether we do not think that a question of the privileges and rights of individual Members of this House is involved, and perhaps seek a Ruling on it from Mr. Speaker at the appropriate time tomorrow.
At all events I am determined to make the journey about which I told the Secretary of State several months ago. I shall go to Mahé, and I shall seek to see all those people whom I think, as a Member of Parliament. I ought to see in order to inform myself both about the island's problems and also about the problem relating to the important detainees held there at the present time. The responsibility for interfering with that will be on the shoulders of the right hon. Gentleman. I do not want to get into acrimonious discussion with him—

Mr. Bevan: The right hon. Gentleman does not mind.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Misguided though I think his policy—or shall I say the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, because we know what the real situation is—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: What does the hon. Gentleman mean by that innuendo? This has been a debate of innuendos. If that particular one means any division of view between my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and myself on Cyprus, it is totally false.

Mr. Bevan: The right hon. Gentleman is as bad as the Prime Minister.

Mr. Noel-Baker: No suggestion of that kind was made—[HON MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—but if the right hon. Gentleman likes to bring up the point, he can. All I say is that the policies announced and discussed in the House by the Secretary of State and by the Prime Minister shock me greatly. I disagree with them strongly. Of course the Prime Minister


has responsibilities in this matter, and everybody knows very well that he has, and the part that has been played. In spite of that, the right hon. Gentleman knows that I shall continue, in the face of whatever provocation may be offered from anybody, to try to do all I can to find a decent, reasonable and peaceful settlement of this problem.
One small thing that might contribute to that would be if people informed of the situation, here and in Cyprus, have an opportunity to talk quietly in private with the Archbishop, telling him their views and telling him how the situation has developed in recent months. I cannot tell the House what I shall say to the Archbishop, for obvious reasons, but I would not object to telling the right hon. Gentleman what line I shall take. I want to make this journey of investigation, and it would be a good thing if other hon. Members went out there during the Recess. So if any hon. Gentlemen opposite would like to come with me, that would be a good plan
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give a considered reply. I warn him again that I intend to make this journey and to ask for Mr. Speaker's guidance if, in our opinion, in the light of his answer we think that a question of Privilege is involved.

6.19 p.m.

Mr. Stephen Swingler: I was amazed to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) said. I always understood that a British Member of Parliament was entitled to have free communication with any citizen of British territory. A number of my hon. Friends, for example, have been to Cyprus and have visited those who are imprisoned in Cyprus for political offences. My hon. Friends have been permitted to have communication with them.
I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government should use whatever powers they are able to use to prevent my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon from going to the Seychelles and communicating with Archbishop Makarios, who has not been charged or brought to trial or convicted of any offence whatever. I therefore hope that we shall have some explanation on that point, and I certainly hope and believe

that my hon. Friend will pursue it because it affects the rights of hon. Members as much as the case brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) about the interference, in the Seychelles, with his correspondence.
By this stage in the debate it should be clear that the Secretary of State would have saved himself much trouble had he agreed to the appointment of a commission of inquiry on the maladministration in the Seychelles in the first instance. Had this happened elsewhere, of course, it would have been done. That is obvious. It is also obvious that hon. Members opposite would not have sprung to the defence of those persons against whom grave allegations have been made had they been certain other persons in other Colonial Territories.
We do not find them doing so in the case of Dr. Jagan, in British Guiana, or in the case of Archbishop Makarios, in Cyprus, or in the case, apparently, of Dr. Azikiwe, in Nigeria. Yet hon. Members who have not even read the Government publication on the Seychelles and seen the maladministration it reveals are prepared, on the basis of little or no knowledge of the Seychelles, to denounce these grave allegations.
I do not want to speak about the case of Chief Justice Lyon. I know nothing about it. Nevertheless, I should have thought it reasonable that when very grave allegations had been made by reputable citizens in a British Colonial Territory they constituted a prima facie case for an independent inquiry. I should have thought that in the interests both of the persons against whom the allegations have been made and of the reputable citizens of the Colony making the allegations to the Minister responsible, an inquiry was necessary. If these allegations are made in circumstances in which many other criticisms are being made of the standard of administration in that Colony, I should have thought that they constituted an opportunity and a challenge to the Secretary of State to carry out a general commission of inquiry.
The House has very recently had an example of such allegations being made against the Prime Minister in another Colony, and in that case an independent Commission of Inquiry was set up. When one thinks back over other colonial crises


in which allegations of personal corruption or incompetence have been made, one finds many examples of the situation being met immediately by the Secretary of State granting a commission of inquiry.
Some hon. Members were under the illusion, when the debate started, that those hon. Members who had asked for it were concerned merely with the allegations against Chief Justice Lyon. I believe that far more serious issues arise which should more deeply concern hon. Members, very few of whom, obviously, have read the recent official Report on the Seychelles. Very few have read the allegations of the Minister's Principal Auditor on the accounts of the Seychelles. I ask those hon. Members who have been interested in this discussion to read, during the Recess, this official Government publication, which was published two-and-a-half months ago, and then decide whether or not they think there is maladministration or a prima facie case for a commission of inquiry.
This Report of the Principal Auditor discloses, in the first place, that in most of the Departments of Government in these islands, populated by 30,000 people, no kind of check on administration can be carried out because no books and documents are kept concerning either revenue or expenditure. Is it not extraordinary that in a British Colonial Territory the Auditor should report to the Secretary of State and the Governor that not in the Education Department, not in the Labour and Welfare Department and not in the Health Department was he able to carry out any kind of check on what was being done, on taxation or on expenditure, because no books or documents were available?
Is it not also extraordinary that the Auditor should discover that for a period of four years the Customs Department of the Islands was under-assessing Customs duties? We have the story, now confirmed by the Secretary of State, that £89,000 has been lost to the revenue of the Seychelles between 1950 and 1954 as a result of the fact that the Customs Department was wrongly assessing the duty on rum and wine. The Department was making a guess which was always an under-assessment, and it has been calculated that the loss, as a result, has been £89,000.
What is the excuse? It is that the Department did not possess the correct kind of hydrometer or spirit conversion table and that it took four years to find that out, in spite of all the queries submitted to the Department by the Auditor.
Is it not extraordinary that we should have a state of affairs in which it is alleged that senior officers of the Government have upgraded themselves to a salary higher than their qualifications allow and that the Governor has then given retrospective approval to enable them to remain on a salary higher than that of their correct grading? Is that a state of affairs which the House can allow to pass, when it is put down in black and white in the official Report of the Auditor that the senior officers of the Colonial Government in the Seychelles are permitted to upgrade themselves to any salary they wish and then can be given retrospective approval by the Governor?
This is the kind of thing about which the Auditor, sent out by the Minister, complains—that he has issued 726 queries and has failed to get an answer to them. I recently asked the Secretary of State to which years these queries of the Auditor on the Departments which he could audit were relevant. Two of them go back to 1951, 34 go back to 1952, 48 go back to 1953, 90 go back to 1954, and there are now 135 on the year 1955. These are all queries on the accounts issued by the Principal Auditor, to which he can get no reply from the Department.
That is not the only thing about which he complains. He complains that in the year in which he was last inspecting he discovered that the Supplies Department of the Seychelles Islands reported that it had made a net profit of 74,000 rupees, but that when he carried out his audit he discovered that it had made a loss of 29,000 rupees. That was the standard of accountancy in the Supplies Department, and it was better than that in the Education Department, which had no books at all. The Auditor reported that he was unable to carry out an audit on the Education Department, the Labour and Welfare Department and the Health Department. In a Department in which an audit could be carried out, he discovered that a net profit of tens of thousands of rupees was being declared when it was, in fact, a net loss of tens of thousands of rupees.
Quite apart from the case of Chief Justice Lyon and the very grave allegations made against him by reputable citizens in petitioning the Secretary of State, I say that the official Report which is in the possession of the Colonial Office warrants an inquiry. Unfortunately, the Report is not in the possession of the Library of the House. Apparently the Seychelles Government do not send their official publications to the Library of the House, although we are responsible for the Seychelles Islands; we have to go to the Librarian and to demand that the Colonial Office file copy should be brought over here. Perhaps that is a matter which might be remedied.
The Secretary of State, who only now has taken the action of asking the Governor to make his observations on the Principal Auditor's Report, having examined that Report, which has been in his possession for two months, should have seen that there was a prima facie case of maladministration in the government of the Seychelles and that an independent commission of inquiry should be sent out there immediately to put matters right.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: I must apologise for intervening in the debate, not having heard the opening speeches. The reason was that I was serving on a Select Committee on Estimates. I rise only to reply to some extent to the speech of the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). Some months ago I interested myself in the affairs of the Seychelles Islands and had correspondence with somebody who had been there.
I want to say something about the Chief Justice. This has been a most unfair debate. Attacks have been made on the Chief Justice, although hon. Members opposite have not taken the opportunity to put down a substantive Motion. They have so over-painted the picture and so over-egged the pudding that if the administration of justice in the Seychelles is anything like that which they have attempted to portray, I am astounded that there has been so little evidence of any scandal or maladministration—[HON MEMBERS: "What does the hon. Member want?"] I want something substantial.

Mr. Swingler: Has the hon. Member read the Report?

Mr. Nicholson: I have not read the Report. I have listened to what has been said in the House and I went into some of these cases in correspondence with someone who was recently in the islands.
One cannot pin down hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for Paddington, North made a most amusing speech, but in it there was nothing but hearsay, nothing but tittle tattle, and nothing which one could pin down. The real truth about the islands is that these allegations are, so far, just a lot of tittle tattle. General Gordon said that the islands were the Garden of Eden. Certainly they are full of serpents and serpents' tongues. This is a small community on small islands and whenever there is a small population, there is bound to be tittle tattle. In addition to that, they are largely influenced by the Roman Catholic Church, with the resulting strains and stresses. I should be amazed if there were not this tittle tattle, but I am even more amazed at the attitude of hon. Members opposite, who have dared to suggest that there is anything in these cases which can be substantiated. [HON MEMBERS: "How does the hon. Member know?"] Because they have not been substantiated.
Hon. Members speak about these islands as though they are places which nobody has ever visited and about which we know nothing. Does not the fact that there has been this stringent and condemnatory audit prove that close attention is paid to the islands? The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, (Mr. Swingler) said that the allegations showed a prima facie case for an inquiry. Is any community with an unsubstantiated grievance to have a commission of inquiry?
I put it to the House, while by no means saying that everything is happy in the islands, that such gross overstatement and such gross assumption over a little bit of tittle tattle as evidence of substantial maladministration of justice is not doing a service to the inhabitants of the Seychelles or the colonial administration. I hope that hon. Members will show more sense of proportion.

6.35 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): The usual practice when the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) and I discuss colonial matters is that I have the privilege of hearing what he has to say and then winding up the debate. I should have been glad to have done that tonight. I am speaking first only because the right hon. Gentleman wants me to do so and I am not in a position to dispute that wish, but I ask hon. Members to remember that if the right hon. Gentleman makes charges to which I am not able to reply, it was because, to meet the right hon. Gentleman's convenience, I was prepared to speak first.
On the Consolidated Fund Bill his wish must be my law and, there being no Motion, if I had not risen now we should have been looking at each other until ten o'clock. One of the most agreeable consequences of the House rising is that we shall not have to look at each other for very much longer. I think it is as well that I should do what I have to do with as much grace as I can.
I am sorry that in the past we have not had more debates on territories like the Seychelles. Certainly I have always been anxious that we should have as many days as possible devoted to colonial problems. One of the difficulties—and this is common to all of us—is that there are so many great issues in so many Colonies of the first importance that when a day is chosen for a colonial debate the issue is always a great headline issue, or some matter of world-wide importance, so that the problems in the smaller territories tend to get less examination in the House than they deserve.
I am awaiting the recommendation of the right hon. Gentleman's party about how we can devote more time to discussion of Colonial Territories, and I very much hope that we shall use any extra time which we can get in discussing problems of smaller territories.

Mr. Ellis Smith: The right hon. Gentleman could refer that to the Select Committee on Procedure.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Being a Minister, I am not in a position to refer matters of that kind, but I shall do anything I can behind the scenes to encourage anything that results in more time being given

to colonial matters. I recognise the opinion that it is very important that we should bring the Parliamentary searchlight to bear on smaller Territories such as the Seychelles.
I feel extremely strongly about the failure of the Opposition to put down a substantive Motion and so enable me in detail to answer the wild accusations against the Chief Justice of the Seychelles, who has not made a public statement and who has maintained, since the campaign started, an attitude of the utmost correctitude. I should welcome a discussion on the problems of the Seychelles. About 40,000 people are on the islands, the largest of which is Mahé. There are many problems which are by no means solved, and many urgent problems where the solution is not even at the end of the tunnel.
I recognise my responsibilities in this subject, and with the help of the House I shall always do what I can to help forward the economic development of the Seychelles, which is their first need and consideration. In doing that we have to recognise that, without an airport at the moment and not lying on any of the main shipping routes, the islands are remote, and development is consequently a great deal more difficult. In addition, their almost entire dependence on copra makes them particularly susceptible to movements in the price of that commodity. One of the few good consequences of the Korean war was good prices for copra, and the Seychelles profited accordingly. The basic problem remains the need to increase production and to try to introduce better communications and a more up-to-date agricultural procedure.
The consequence of this being a small and isolated community, with a far from buoyant revenue, is bound to be seen in all aspects of the islands' administration, not only in the Civil Service but in the development plan and development progress in general. People of high technical quality are required, but naturally, with the limited rewards now available in the Seychelles, they prefer to go elsewhere. It must be our task to find some means whereby the relative poverty of those territories does not prevent them from receiving the help which is necessary in order that they can improve the lot of their inhabitants.
In addition to the consequences in commerce and economic development, caused by their remoteness and relative poverty, there is also the consequence, which we all recognise, that personalities and individual rivalries and animosities play an extraordinarily depressing and continuing part. Some of the difficulties in relation to the Chief Justice, which I cannot discuss in detail—although certain suggestions and statements were made earlier—go back for some years, to the days when the party opposite was responsible for the administration of the Seychelles. At that time the acting Attorney-General, Mr. Collet—as is well known, because I believed it appeared in the course of a debate in Parliament—had been recommended to be acting Chief Justice. Another appointment was made and, without wishing to enter in any way into the local controversy, I think I can say that from that time on Mr. Collet, who went on living in the islands, and the Chief Justice have been on the very worst of terms, to put it mildly. The animosities which that has caused and the wild charges against the Chief Justice which have in part ensued from this must be a matter of regret to us all.
One or two statements of a disparaging and totally unjustified kind have been made against the Governor of the Seychelles, Sir William Addis. The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) quoted somebody whom I did not know personally. Perhaps I failed to catch the name correctly, but there were approving murmurs among the hon. Member's friend, so it sounds as though he were an eminent gentleman. It appears that he had a number of criticisms to make about the Governor. I would say that we are lucky to have a governor of the quality and distinction of Sir William Addis in that small community. The one thing that has worried me is that I have unintentionally added to and increased his burdens by the deportations from Cyprus to the island of Mahé.
There are only two senior administrative officers in the islands—the Governor and the Secretary to Government. I know that they are overburdened with matters of detail which should be resolved at lower levels. On occasions, at the Colonial Office, I find myself charged with more responsibility than I

can adequately discharge at the moment, and I am sure that the Governor of the Seychelles feels exactly the same, together with the only other senior administrative officer, the Secretary to Government. I realise that they are carrying out tasks which should be done by other people, but I also recognise that the salary scale which they are at the moment in a position to offer would not provide a wide enough range of candidates for administrative posts.
There is also the regrettable consequence that adequate facilities are not available locally for training some of the very good local material which exists. The Governor has long been anxious about that and has been in consultation with me for some time about the need to improve and reorganise the Civil Service and to carry out a salaries revision. The smallness of the funds is a great handicap, however, and the Governor and I have to pay regard to that depressing fact. I agree with him that expert advice for the Seychelles should be sought from outside the Colony. Suitable measures should be put in hand for the reorganisation and general modernisation of the administration and, at the same time, a fiscal commissioner should be appointed, who might examine that position, as well as the fiscal position in general.
Apart from that, I agree that expert technical advice should be made available to help the islands in their development plan. It was suggested some months ago that a senior officer of my Department should very shortly go to give help in Seychelles. Though helpful, that by itself will not be enough. It is important that suitable technical help should be given. We have not heard as much today as we should have done about the development plan, so I will not give further details to the House, but I hope that a chance will arise in a general colonial debate, or during some further discussion about the Seychelles, to deal with the problems of development in general and the things which have to be done, and the need to find the material means whereby they can be done.
As the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) said, the position has been made considerably more acute by the return of 1,400 ex-Pioneers from the Suez Canal Zone, which has increased by 25 per cent. the number of men in the labour


market. I heard the suggestion made that selfishness and cupidity were keeping the people from a proper examination of the possibilities of emigration. I have no reason to believe that that charge has any truth in it, and I am quite sure that if ways can be found both of employing people locally and encouraging them to settle elsewhere, all the worth-while people in the territory will be behind these schemes.
Other charges have been made with which I should like to deal briefly before coming to those points which formed the main cause of this debate, and in connection with which I am conscious of the need to keep most carefully in order. Reference has been made to the Report of the Principal Auditor. I do not pretend that anybody who has read that Report could be complacent about it. It certainly shows up many of the problems of the islands in a very vivid fashion. But reports of this kind—as the House should recognise, in fairness—are bound very often to fasten upon the unsatisfactory features in any landscape.
That is to be expected, but if one took out of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General those things which reflected upon the United Kingdom from time to time—such as the Report of the auditors, Cooper Bros., who examined the ground nuts scheme—and suggested that they were representative of the whole field of activity, we should get the matter out of perspective. I recognise that this Report contains a great deal which requires careful examination and remedy, in so far as it is possible.
It would be a great mistake to imagine that with the limited resources available and the. smaller staff than elsewhere, we can, overnight, bring the auditing and accounting system to anything approaching the standards we would like to see. Apart from the fact that reports of this kind invariably concentrate upon the things which need remedying, I would point out that this is the Report for 1954, and that in the course of that year a number of improvements had been made. In 1955 and in this year there have also been improvements in many of the matters to which the Report drew adverse attention.
The hon. Member for Rugby spoke about the 700 or so queries which were still unsettled but, as a result of the real

drive which has gone on since the Governor instituted it, 367 queries have been settled, and the number now outstanding is 362, of which nearly 200 relate to 1955–56.
One of the misfortunes of these long delays in the publication of reports—as we know from the reports of public commissions in the United Kingdom, and documents of that kind—is that, so often, although there has been an improvement since the report was published, the facts having been brought to the Government's attention, the House is unconscious of that improvement until it is too late to debate the report. New finance and stores regulations have been drawn up, and the Governor intends to issue these shortly. But he is still not satisfied with the accounting organisation, and the Director-General of Overseas Audit, who visited Seychelles in 1953, has expressed the belief that the main weakness lies in the lack of qualified and experienced staff. I recognise that it must be my duty, along with the people who are working so hard in the Seychelles themselves, to try to remedy that.
I should like to make a brief reference to two other specific charges regarding matters in the Principal Auditor's Report. We heard that, with my approval, Customs duties totalling nearly £90,000 had been written off. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) asked me a Question about that, and he referred to it again a few minutes ago. The hon. Gentleman spoke as if this was revenue lost to the Seychelles. Of course, that is not true. Perhaps I may remind the House of the Answer which was given on Monday to a Question by the hon. Gentleman:
The Seychelles Legislative Council, with my approval, authorised the write-off of Customs dues totalling £89,651. These sums ware uncollected between the middle of 1950 and the beginning of 1954 owing to the application of the minimum rate of duty on still wines in cask which, because of their alcoholic content, should have attracted duty at a higher rate. The bulk of;he sum arose from the import of low-priced South African wine."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 30th July, 1956; Vol. 557, c. 89–90.]
There should have been a higher duty levied on this wine than was in fact arrived at, but then it would clearly have been impossible to have sold it at a reasonable profit. Had the duty been as high as it should have been there is


every reason to believe that nothing approaching the same quantity of wine would in fact have been imported; and so we cannot claim that the £90,000 is money lost to the revenue. [HON MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is a perfectly logical consequence of taxation going beyond the point at which the consumer is prepared to pay.
Other questions were asked on the—

Mr. Swingler: The right hon. Gentleman has just made a remark which is a little peculiar. He said it was an example of taxation going beyond the point at which the consumer was prepared to pay. Is he saying that there is something wrong with the duties and that they should have been lower? The point was, how were these Customs duties originally assessed? Surely, the right hon. Gentleman is not trying to justify the assessment?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Certainly, I am not doing that. It was the absence of a machine to which my right hon. Friend has referred, but that has now been provided. I think it is called an ebulliometer, or something of that kind, which tests the alcoholic content. I do not suggest that a higher duty should not be levied, but were it levied, there is no reason whatever to think that there would have been orders for anything like the same quantity of wine as was imported into the Seychelles.

Mr. Bevan: That does not apply here.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It has applied here, and that is one of the lessons which we are vainly trying to teach to the Socialists.
Another charge was made, with regard to the Auditor's Report, about the conversion of themselves to a higher salary by Government employees. The answer has been given to that question today. Only two cases of conversion to salaries higher than Grade I are known to have occurred, although nine other cases are under investigation. In one case the officer concerned has reverted to the proper salary, and in the other the conversion made, though not considered strictly equitable, was confirmed by the Governor with my approval. I am ready, now or on another occasion, to explain in more detail the circumstances of that case. Perhaps I can write to the hon. Gentleman, and he can take the matter

up with me again on an early occasion when the House reassembles after the Recess.

Mr. Parkin: Would it not be more useful if the right hon. Gentleman made a communication to his colleagues who are junior Ministers?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: We all speak with a united voice—I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman has in mind.

Mr. Parkin: How does one get a rise in salary?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I know that the hon. Gentleman had a particular interest, and I think it is probable that his personal needs and ambitions could best be satisfied if he went to the Seychelles and took part in the marvellous draw the full details of which he gave an account.
I am conscious that the main purpose of this debate is to discuss the suggestion that there should be some inquiry into the position of the Chief Justice of the Seychelles. I have read again your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, with the greatest care, and I shall do my best not to transgress it. I understand that I should be in order in making references, not very detailed references, to the petition which I received, because it was my failure to act on that petition, which is executive, about which I think I can quite rightly be called to account by this House.
There is no question—as the hon. Member for Islington, East seems to think—about the Chief Justice being reappointed or not reappointed by me. The Chief Justice holds office, as do others, during Her Majesty's pleasure. Were reappointment required after the conclusion of a period, and if that reappointment could be vetoed or challenged in this House, all sorts of serious consequences would ensue. I was asked in the petition that the Chief Justice should not return for a third tour. I could not properly take such action; the only action which I could properly take was to consider whether there were sufficient grounds for a judicial inquiry.
I consulted the Governor, and I examined the petition which I had received with the greatest care, and in many consultations with all those people in my office who are experienced in problems regarding the judiciary, and on whose advice I naturally place considerable regard. But


the decision not to accede to the petition was mine and mine alone. As I say, I looked very carefully indeed into that petition. In it reference was made to aloofness and the need for some aloofness on the part of the Chief Justice in the Seychelles. I decided that the maintenance of aloofness in a territory like the Seychelles was a difficult operation for anyone and I did not believe that I should be justified in setting up a judicial inquiry of that particular kind.
Stories about the private life of the Chief Justice appeared in the petition. After a great deal of thought and consideration, I decided that the Chief Justice is—as I hope I am—a gregarious, convivial and friendly person who likes to relax and who does not—any more than I do—refuse a drink. But I was quite satisfied that there was no evidence whatever that that fact had ever been obvious in court, any more than I hope the fact that I do not refuse a drink has ever been obvious in this House. I was absolutely satisfied that there was no justice whatever in the charge that the Chief Justice had driven a motor car while under the influence of drink.
I was also satisfied that there was no evidence whatever—save in his one relationship with Mr. Collet—that he had been other than strictly impartial. There was no evidence of partiality whatever.
I was completely confident that the charge of corruption against the Chief Justice was a monstrous charge to make, and totally unjustified, and that there is not a shred of evidence that that charge should have appeared. It is the most serious charge in the petition, and, naturally, I attached much importance to it. I examined it very carefully.
There was also a charge made about appeals. It was said that judgments had been upset on appeal. I think that the House knows the figures, and the only new point which has emerged was made by the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin). He asked whether I could say how many of the cases decided in fact allowed for an appeal to take place. I am afraid that I cannot do that, but I will get the information and let the hon. Member and the House have it as soon as possible. Perhaps the House is not aware that appeals from the Supreme Court of the Seychelles in civil

cases go to Mauritius, but since last year, 1955, the system has altered, and in criminal cases they go to the Eastern African Court of Appeal.
The hon. Member asked about the cost, and I answered a Question on the subject on 22nd February. There is no court fee at all in criminal cases and in civil cases they are very moderate fees. If people are suffering from extreme poverty, no fees at all are charged, except a minor registration stamp duty. Having taken up this matter personally with the Governor, I am satisfied that there is no justification for the charge that there would have been more appeals had it been cheaper to do so.
No doubt, as frequently happens in this country and elsewhere, people are slightly overawed with the whole machinery of appeal and do not exercise their proper rights. I have no reason to believe that cost is a criterion in the Seychelles, but if any hon. Member has a case that he would like to bring to my attention, I will take it up straight away.

Mr. Parkin: Surely, it costs a lot of money to travel to East Africa and engage a lawyer, and surely fees are paid to lawyers in the Seychelles.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: In criminal cases, which are the most important of all, no fees are charged. If the hon. Member for Paddington, North has any evidence that anybody has been prevented by poverty from exercising his rights before the proper tribunal, I hope that he will let me have it, and I will see that the matter is thoroughly investigated.
Having examined the position with great care, what was my next step? I was satisfied that there was no evidence whatever to justify me in invoking the very heavy machinery which it lay in my power, or that of the Governor, to invoke, for a judicial inquiry, and then there would have been an obligation on me, unless the Chief Justice asked that it should not be done, to refer the matter to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. I was satisfied that there was no such evidence. Was it possible that, if there had been a judicial inquiry, more evidence would have been forthcoming? I asked the Governor this as a direct question. The Governor made inquiries and assured me—and I accept this absolutely—that had there been an inquiry, such


further evidence as would have been forthcoming would have been quite inadequate to justify me in taking such a serious step.
Reference has also been made to the search of Mr. Mullery's house. The hon. Gentleman did not go into that matter in great detail, but I hope a chance will arise for me to give more details to him. I will certainly write to the hon. Gentleman and if, as the result of my letter, he is satisfied that this search had nothing whatever to do with the fact that Mr. Mullery was in correspondence with a Member of Parliament, I hope that he will give that recognition the same wide publicity as he gave to the original charge.
I have two more points to make. I Was asked a question about religious discrimination. I looked most carefully into that. There were many letters from Archdeacon Roach, some to Members of Parliament and some to other people. I was very concerned about that matter. I think it is proper for me to say that I also spoke to the Archbishop of Canterbury himself about the matter, because I am very concerned that in the territories for which I have responsibility there should not be religious discrimination.
I was satisfied, after my discussion with the Governor, that there was no evidence of intolerance or persecution. I find it very difficult to deny that, knowing that the population is 90 per cent. Roman Catholic, but finding that, none the less, the Protestant community has two out of the six members of the Executive Council and six out of twelve members of the Legislative Council, and that a number of most important posts in the Administration are held by Protestants.
I was assured by Archdeacon Roach's successor that he was not aware of any incident in which it would be true to say that there had been persecution of the Anglican community. Though I would not wish to enter into any personal charges in this House, I wish that those, whether reverend gentlemen or otherwise, who give currency to this serious charge, would themselves show something of the sort of tact which is necessary in a predominantly Roman Catholic community.
I share the view that there ought to be visits to the Seychelles both of Ministers and Members of Parliament, and T hope that the time will come when

there will be visits. I hope that during my period of office it will be possible for me to visit the territory, though it is a little difficult to give any firm indication now. I share the view that there ought to be more visits.
The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) told me that he wished to go to the Seychelles. I made it clear to him from the start that I could not be held to have given any undertaking of any kind that if he decided to do so he would be able to see Archbishop Makarios. The hon. Gentleman asked me under what charge the Archbishop was detained in the Seychelles, and under what authority I, or the Governor, with my full approval, would refuse to allow visits at this moment to the Archbishop. The authority is the Political Prisoners (Detention) Ordinance No. 1, 1956. The Archbishop is there with three other detainees. There are four in all. That is the answer to the second question.
The Archbishop and the other detainees have given their parole, and that has enabled them to have much greater freedom to move in the island. If visits are paid by them or attempts are made to pay visits to them, in circumstances which I and the Governor consider would not be in the interests of the pacification of Cyprus, steps would have to be taken to limit for the time of the visit the freedom enjoyed by the detainees. I have no intention whatever of allowing the Archbishop to resume his leadership and his association with E.O.K.A. by firing long-distance artillery from the Seychelles. If, as my right hon. Friend has said, the Archbishop denounces violence, a new situation will arise.

7.6 p.m.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: In answering the Colonial Secretary I give an undertaking that I will not do what he has done so frequently, import fresh material at the very end of his speech. I propose to deal only with what has become known to hon. Members in the course of the debate. It would be unwise and ragged to start another debate at this stage.
What the right hon. Gentleman has just said was received with an extraordinary amount of complacency by hon. Members


in all parts of the House, but I know that some of my hon. Friends are alarmed at its significance. If this sort of thing had been done by a Communist country it would be universally condemned. When we take part in visits abroad—when I went to China, for instance—we asked that we should see Chinese prisoners and Chinese prisons. The members of the delegation who went were allowed to, and did, see the prisons and the prisoners and talked to them. The same thing was true a little while ago in Yugoslavia. There were certatin political prisoners in prison there who we know were Socialists. We had access to them, although we were foreigners. We were able to examine them, see the conditions under which they were incarcerated, and find out whether they were justified or not.
Here is one of Her Majesty's Ministers at that Box talking about Archbishop Makarios, who has been sent to the Seychelles by an act of physical force by him and under an Order made by him. There was no specific charge made against the Archbishop or trial of any sort. The Archbishop was taken by an act of naked violence for precisely the reason that Hitler, Mussolini or Nasser would plead, and with no more justification. There was just the use of naked force, with nothing behind it but naked force. The Archbishop was taken to an island.
We are calmly told now by the Minister that if a Member of this House goes to the Seychelles he will not be permitted to see the Archbishop. That is a Fascist point of view. There is nothing different in that from the behaviour of Fascist countries. It is a Fascist principle. The Minister says that he will stand between Members of this House and an interview with a person imprisoned by the Executive without any court action of any sort. I say to hon. Members opposite that that makes a lovely present to Mao Tse-tung, to Mr. Khrushchev, to Colonel Nasser, and everyone now attacking British imperialism.
The right hon. Gentleman says, in conclusion, "If, however, Archbishop Makarios will do what I want him to do I will reduce the penalties." That is precisely what he said. Hon. Members know what I said about this the other day in this House. It is no use attacking me about this. I have already pointed out that if the Cypriots in Cyprus were

wise enough to abandon violence they would see how naked Her Majesty's Government are. This is the only plea they have left to hide their bankruptcy of statesmanship. The right hon. Gentleman says that the duress in which the Archbishop is detained will be relaxed if he is prepared to say what the right hon. Gentleman wants him to say.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I said, "A new situation would arise."

Mr. Bevan: Do not hide mean intentions behind flatulent sentences. The right hon. Gentleman has said what every tyrant in history has always said, "If you will do what I want you to do I will reduce the penalties." I say to hon. Members opposite most solemnly and seriously that behind that philosophy and behaviour there is no distinction whatever between the conduct of Her Majesty's Government and that of every tyrant in Europe whom we have been fighting in the last fifteen years. I should have thought it would have been much more sensible for the right hon. Gentleman to have said, "We are willing that any hon. Member who is able to travel to the Seychelles should see Archbishop Makarios." What possible damage could be done by that? Even the Archbishop's letters are intercepted.
I must say I am rather amused by the petty tyrant we are now seeing opposite saying that he dares to invoke the authority of British democracy for conduct of this sort. We were hoping for the sake of his reputation that his conduct over Cyprus was due to the fact that he lay under the shadow of the Foreign Office, but he now assures us that he subscribes to every bit of this foolishness and is part author of the nonsense that has been condemned in every part of Britain and the world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) has said, he will find his humiliation—which, unfortunately, we shall have to share—because some time or other Archbishop Makarios will have to be brought in to settle the Cyprus matter. Then we shall have another galumphing speech, consisting 50 per cent. of testimonials and 50 per cent. of votes of thanks such as we have had today.
One would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would have taken into account the condition of the Seychelles before he sent Archbishop Makarios


there. Did he send him there as an example of a model colonial administration? As he himself said, it is a small island. It being small, by now Archbishop Makarios will know all the cornucopia of benefits which have been poured out by the Colonial Office on it. He will know of all of them and everything revealed in this debate and much else besides. Do not let us hear any more of what we have heard from hon. Members opposite, who have not even bothered to read the documents before they made their defence, that we have not been to the Seychelles and, therefore, do not know anything about it.
That is really a remarkable argument to fall from the lips of hon. Members whose party have been governing the Colonies for hundreds of years and who now on their own showing have been ignoramuses the whole time. Are we to have this Babbitt argument? I suppose they will tell school teachers that they must not teach the children about the Seychelles because the teachers have never been there.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: I apologise for interrupting my right hon. Friend, but I am bound to say that the last remark of the Secretary of State took my breath away. He appeared to make an allegation that my purpose in going to the Seychelles would be to carry out long-range propaganda to Cyprus. If that was the imputation it was unjustified, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I said I was not prepared to allow anything to happen whereby the Archbishop could carry out long-range artillery. The hon. Member might be a genuine but rather simple bearer of ammunition.

Mr. Noel-Baker: It is not any good to say that I might be a simple instrument in the hands of someone else. The right hon. Gentleman knows what the situation is. I hope he will have the courtesy to withdraw the imputation he made, or to correct it.

Mr. Bevan: It is not really good enough for the Minister to use language like that about hon. Members of this House and to talk about "A simple instrument." Good heavens, look at the Front Bench opposite. A bigger collection of guileless ignoramuses I have

never seen in my life. The right hon. Gentleman should not use language of that sort in describing hon. Members of this House who, after all, would not be here unless they were responsible members of the public.
I suppose that the same language would apply if my right hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell) went there. Supposing that by a happy accident I managed to get the money to be able to travel to the Seychelles, then, I suppose, I, also, would be too simple an instrument to go there, would I? Would the right hon. Gentleman answer the question? Supposing that a right hon. Member, a Privy Councillor, went to the Seychelles on a visit and wished to see Archbishop Makarios. what would happen? Can he tell us?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The right hon. Member and his right hon. and hon. Friends were considering whether to raise a question of Privilege. Before answering a hypothetical question of that kind, while it would be an enchanting prospect. I had better wait until they make up their minds.

Mr. Bevan: The reply of the right hon. Gentleman is not worthy of a village debating society. He has already answered my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon and the question of Privilege obviously did not arise in his mind because he gave that answer. He told my hon. Friend that if he goes to the Seychelles and asks to see the Archbishop he will not be allowed to do so. I want to know if a member of the Privy Council went to the Seychelles and asked to see Archbishop Makarios what would the right hon. Gentleman say? [HON MEMBERS: "Answer."] The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman is really not worthy of his office and ought to reflect much more seriously before he makes statements of that sort.
I want to come back to the main paragraph with which I was dealing when I was interrupted by my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon. The Archbishop has been sent to the Seychelles as a perfect example of colonial administration. Fifty per cent. of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was devoted to an admission of the charges made against the Administration. If he looks it up tomorrow he will see


that it was a plea that it has been put right and an explanation of how it had gone wrong.
The right hon. Gentleman did not rebut any of the charges made against the Administration for which the Governor is responsible—not one. He said, "Of course, this is a small island—or a number of small islands. The resources are inconsiderable. They are not sufficient to attract officials of high standing and, of course, we can expect these things to happen." He protested, as usual, that we did not say what was right. Auditors do not go through books to find out what is right; they go through them to find out what is wrong. And when they do find out something that is wrong, what is found out is not a testimonial to those who have been wrong but a testimonial to the accuracy of the audit—although one would have thought, from what the right hon. Gentleman said, that there was something right in being wrong—in the Seychelles.
I must say that I am rather worried about the effect of what the right hon. Gentleman says on the administration of his Department. He did not appear to regard this as very serious at all. I am bound to say, after having had many years of experience of local government and experience of the Ministry of Health, that if the auditor had presented a report of that sort to me about any local authority in Great Britain I would have ordered an immediate inquiry—even concerning a local authority. Yet the right hon. Gentleman says that there is nothing wrong. There is hardly a paragraph in the Auditor's Report in which something quite serious is not reported as having gone wrong, yet we are told that the Governor, who is responsible for this Administration, is a person who has the Minister's complete trust.
I wonder what would have been the position if we had been sitting there and he had been sitting here and we had had this Report? I wonder what hon. Gentlemen opposite would have said? I do not expect the right hon. Gentleman to be fully aware of what is happening in every one of our Colonies. No one in the House expects that. Everyone knows that the right hon. Gentleman is overburdened by too extensive work—and too few good principles. We know that. But when conditions of this sort are brought

to light he should have a little more humility and say, "I am very glad to say that this Administration is being overhauled."
The Secretary of State should be more grateful to the Opposition for bringing this to light, rather than admonish us because we say certain things about individuals. How can we do our duty in this House unless we can fearlessly attack individuals if we think that they are wrong? Of course, we ought not to do so frivolously and we ought not to exploit our privileges, but the whole purpose of Privilege in this House is that we may fearlessly do our public duty.
If we did not use that Privilege we should not be worthy of our position—and my hon. Friends cannot be said to have acted maliciously in this matter. We do not know the people involved. We have never met them. It is not as though we were parties to the gossip of the island. We have to act upon the evidence which we receive, and to act upon what we consider to be the credibility of the witnesses giving the evidence. On the face of it, they appear to be credible witnesses.
The Secretary of State is correct in saying that in a small community of this sort there will be personal antagonisms. It is the normal characteristic of village life—and this island is very much like a village—where every difference of principle is converted into elements of personal malignancy. We know that—it happens in all places—but, surely, that is the more reason for the right hon. Gentleman acting a little more sensibly.
What does the first paragraph of the petition say? It could not be more objective. It recognises the validity of the very arguments which the right hon. Gentleman has been addressing to the House. It says:
We submit, first, that three tours as Chief Justice in this very small island is more than any man can carry out with that aloof independence and strict impartiality which the office necessarily demands.
Could anything be more objective than that? What they are saying is that even if the Archangel Gabriel was occupying his office and his personal idiosyncrasies and peccadilloes became known to everyone and repeated every day, his wings might be slightly tarnished. That it what they say. They are saying that a person


in that position ought not to be left there as Chief Justice. That is all they are say-in that paragraph. I should have thought that, on the face of it, that sounds sense. I should have thought that it should move the right hon. Gentleman to say, "Well, we ought to move these judges around a bit more."
I do not think that he is quite right in saying that he has not the power to remove the Chief Justice to another place. I think that he is wrong there, as he has been wrong, indeed, quite frequently in the course of these discussions on the position of colonial judges. In fact, I am rather shocked to find that, after he has been Minister for so many years, the right hon. Gentleman still does not seem to know what his position is in respect of them. Last week, for example, he thought that the Chief Justice was his official. He said:
I have the assurance of the Governor, in whom I have full trust"—
of course—
that the petition contained no evidence that that was so.
He refers there to the charge of non-impartiality. He went on:
In so far as the charge is that a disproportionate number of cases or decisions have been upset on appeal, I would point out that in the last seven years, the Chief Justice has tried 1,561 cases and only 14 of the litigants have thought fit to appeal.
The right hon. Gentleman knows that that is a nonsensical answer. As has already been pointed out in this debate, a very large number of the sentences could not have been appealed against.
But this is where he gives himself away:
Finally, I venture to suggest that Question and Answer in the House of Commons on matters touching individual honour of this kind of an official"—
An official, be it noted—
whose only spokesman in the House is myself …".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th July, 1956; Vol. 557, c. 419–420.]
The right hon. Gentleman is not the spokesman for the Chief Justice if the Chief Justice is a judge and not an official. He has no business to speak for him or against him in his judicial position—and he is not an official. So the right hon. Gentleman got it entirely all wrong. I am bound to say that, even now, the position of the judges in the

Colonies is not quite clear, Mr. Speaker, because with due respect to you, Sir, you have not agreed with your predecessor in this office.
There are two entirely different conclusions. I do not wish, of course, at this moment, to be foolish enough in any way to disagree with what you have said, Mr. Speaker. I accept it, but when this matter came up last week, I ventured to point out that I did not know of any animal known to the law that could be an administrative official and a judge at one and the same time. This sort of juridical schizophrenia is unknown to our system—

Mr. Speaker: If I may say so, I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman says, and perhaps he will permit me to remark that I was asked to find out about this judge, and whether he was on one side or the other of the line. The matter came up as an afterthought. I had ruled of the submission of Privilege made by the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), and it was following that that I was asked a number of questions by the Leader of the Opposition and others as to what the status of this gentleman was. At the time, I did not know. I made my inquiries, not with the object of making any general classification of colonial judges, as to whether they are judges or not, but with the object of finding out what was the status of this chap—this man. What I said on Monday was said after studying the terms of the appointment and the powers of dismissal of this particular gentleman.

Mr. Bevan: I very much appreciate your courtesy in answering me at all, Mr. Speaker, but I am bound to point out that you have found what this bloke is—

Mr. Speaker: If I said "bloke", I hasten to withdraw the word.

Mr. Bevan: I must, however, say, Mr. Speaker, that you have not found him to be the same sort of chap that your predecessor found him to be. We understand that we cannot really discuss the conduct of a Chief Justice except on a substantive Motion; but your predecessor in the Chair said that applied only to judges in this country. But, if I may say so without the slightest element of even appearing to support him, I would say that what lies behind your Ruling is


perfectly sound, namely, that it is, of course, absolutely impossible for the judiciary to discharge its duty if it is to be subject to political pressure.
This is an absolutely vital principle in our Constitution. One hopes that some of the Communist countries will eventually reach that state of affairs where there is a separation between the judiciary and the legislature, so that judges are not subject to criticism in the legislature except on Motions properly moved. Otherwise, their position would be quite intolerable, and, as you were good enough to point out to the House, judges would be in very grave danger of becoming instruments of the Executive if they ever fell into that position. That is perfectly true.
It is true, also, of course, that judges are not liable to be popular with the people whom they try. Those who receive an unpleasant decision from the courts do not usually take it with enthusiasm. The judge, therefore, is not likely to be popular with them. As far as I can see, in the Seychelles such a considerable proportion of the population seems to appear before legal tribunals on one charge or another that the judiciary in the Seychelles is liable to be unpopular at any given moment with a considerable number of the islanders.
Therefore, when we received complaints against the Chief Justice of the Seychelles, we received them, as I ask the right hon. Gentleman to believe, in a responsible mood. We did not say, "Ah, here is a chance of chucking something at the Colonial Secretary; let us do it." We have had experience of administration ourselves, and we know what litigants feel about judges. But the fact of the matter is, as I said before, that on the face of it there is a case. Furthermore, what appears in the petition is not alone. I have documents here, which I cannot read to the House, but which, if I were Colonial Secretary, would incline me to the view, either that the time had come for the Chief Justice to go somewhere else so as to refresh the relationship between the judiciary and the population in the Seychelles, or that there should be a commission of inquiry.
Is it not in the best interests of the Chief Justice that there should be a commission of inquiry now? Is it desirable that the Chief Justice should lie in the

shadow of these accusations, and the only defence be that the Minister, who has the power to recommend him to Her Majesty, is satisfied with him? Surely that is not a state of affairs we want to see in any part of our Colonies.
I really do assure the right hon. Gentleman that we are not trying to drag prejudice into this matter when we ask him to consider for a moment the difference between his attitude here and his attitude towards Eastern Nigeria. When we were told of allegations against the Prime Minister of Eastern Nigeria, we did not receive those allegations in anything like the precise form in which these accusations are made against the Chief Justice of the Seychelles. They were only general; there was no precision about them at all. When I had to consider my attitude towards them, when the right hon. Gentleman announced his Commission of Inquiry, I did not disagree with him. Why? I did not even know that a prima facie case had been made out against the Prime Minister of Eastern Nigeria; and, in point of fact, no prima facie case against him has been made known to the House. The only thing we knew was that allegations had been made questioning the relationship between the Prime Minister of Eastern Nigeria and a certain bank in which he has an interest. I took the view that as soon as those allegations had been made in responsible quarters, nothing at all could be done except to have them thoroughly investigated. That was my view, and I hope that I shall always take that view.
Why did not the right hon. Gentleman do the same in this case? In this case, the allegations are precise and detailed; they do not relate only to the idiosyncrasies of the Chief Justice. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that what a person is or what he does privately has nothing whatever to do with the carrying out of his public duties. If any person or any judge is given to drink, what has that got to do with it, if his judgments are correct and if the people who come before him get justice?
The fact that he gets liquor as well is of no importance to anybody. We are concerned about his public administration. I should have thought that that was obvious, though it is not so obvious to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, of course, who prepared the White Paper on


Security, because in that case all kinds of curious things were brought into question. Apparently, a judge can be guilty of every sort of offence, but if a private citizen is guilty of them he is a bad security risk; and the offences have not even to be proved against him. He has merely to be suspected of them.
I should have thought that when these reputable citizens made this petition, that was of itself enough, added to what the right hon. Gentleman has said, to indicate that the long propinquity of the Chief Justice in the islands with the small population had poisoned his relationship with them, and that those two matters taken together were enough to justify a commission of inquiry, if the right hon. Gentleman were really concerned about good administration and not always with a 100 per cent. defence of everything in his Department.
The letter which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East read out is an exceedingly sober letter. It is signed by gentlemen—I do not know them—whom the Crown has seen fit to honour with high honours, and who occupy judicial positions on the islands. They say that they have refused to sign this petition, but only because they are in judicial positions on the islands; but they also say:
We sympathise with and approve of it.
Here are their names—Mr. Douglas Bailey, O.B.E., J.P., and Sir Michael Nethersole, K.B.E., C.S.I., C.I.E., D.S.O., Police Magistrate.
When the right hon. Gentleman says that he is satisfied that the subjective situation on the islands is responsible for these accusations, he is, in defending the Chief Justice, making an accusation against these persons. He is now leaving them under a cloud, because what he is now saying is that these two reputable gentlemen, who still occupy positions of trust on the islands, are guilty of bitterness, sourness, hostility and malignancy against the Chief Justice. He cannot leave the matter there. He must either clear them or clear the Chief Justice.
Although the islands are a small affair in the general Administration of this House, nevertheless justice should alight upon everybody, however humble, however small and apparently insignificant. It

just will not do that we should have all the heavy armament and panoply of a commission of inquiry into general charges against a black Prime Minister in Eastern Nigeria and, on the other hand, a blank refusal to make even any inquiry at all into charges made against white people in the Seychelles.
It really will not do, and I say, in conclusion, that I am very sorry about this. When the right hon. Gentleman has to deal with homogeneous African populations, his reputation is as good as the reputation of his predecessors, but when he has to do with plural communities, his reputation is becoming rotten. We know that when he has to make any judgment or choice between black and white, he invariably chooses the white. [HON MEMBERS: "No."] I say "Yes." It has been the case in Kenya. [HON MEMBERS: "No."] Certainly, and it is the case here. I say that if the right hon. Gentleman is to be exempt from charges of that sort, the best thing he can do now is to order a commission of inquiry into the administration of justice and civil administration in the Seychelles.

SERETSE KHAMA

7.41 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths: I desire to draw the attention of the House to the case of Seretse Khama, and in the course of what I will have to say, I will put before the House some proposals which my colleagues and I have already put privately to Her Majesty's Government and which we shall once more urge the Government to adopt and act upon in the case of Seretse Khama.
In order that what I shall propose shall be seen in its proper setting and context, it is essential that I should begin, I hope without wearying the House, by a short recital of the history of this case. I think I shall do that best if I set out very briefly, but I hope accurately, the decisions taken by the Labour Government in 1950 and by the Conservative Government in 1952. In 1950, arising out of the situation that developed in the Bamangwato Reserve and among the people of the tribe following the marriage of Seretse Khama, the Labour Government decided to take certain action.
That action consisted, first, of a decision to withhold recognition of Seretse Khama as chief of the Bamangwato Tribe of Bechuanaland; and, secondly, to exclude Seretse and his uncle Tshekedi Khama, who was the Regent, from responsibility in the Reserve. Following upon that, it was decided to vest for the time being the functions of the Native Authority in the District Commissioner, and it was also decided, particularly in view of what had happened, to seek to establish in Bechuanaland, and particularly in the Bamangwato Reserve, a system of councils which would progressively assume responsibility for the administration of the tribe. These were the decisions taken and acted upon by the Labour Government in 1950, and announced in the House in March that year.
When my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker)—who, if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, will intervene in the debate later—made that announcement for the Labour Government, he added that, having made these decisions and having put them into effect, he, speaking for the Government, gave a pledge to the House that the whole position would be reviewed at the end of five years from that date—March, 1950. That was where the position rested until March, 1952, when the Conservative Administration, through the then Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Mr. J. Foster), made a statement to the House intimating that Her Majesty's Government had reconsidered the decision and had reviewed the decisions made and announced in 1950, and had come to certain conclusions and had decided to vary those decisions.
I want to be absolutely accurate when giving very briefly the reasons which that Government gave for their decision, which altered in some important respects the decisions of the Labour Government. They said that they felt it had become essential to end the uncertainty arising from the limited duration of the decision of 1950—that is, the limit of five years, at the end of which the situation would be reviewed. They had also come to the view that it was desirable—indeed. I believe they said that it was essential—to terminate as soon as possible the temporary expedient of direct rule by the

European officers, which was the consequence of vesting the native authority in the District Commissioner. For those reasons, they had decided to make certain important changes in the policy of 1950.
I will set them out very briefly, but quite accurately, as they were stated by the Under-Secretary in his statement in March, 1952. He said that Her Majesty's Government had decided that the decision to withhold recognition of Seretse Khama as chief was to be permanent and final. They had also decided that the tribe should be invited to put forward in due course a candidate for the chieftainship other than Seretse or Tshekedi.
They had also made up their minds and announced their decision that Seretse should be excluded from the Protectorate—that is, the whole of Bechuanaland. within which lies the Bamangwato Reserve—until the alternative chief had been securely established, with his own native administration. They also told us that they had, in consequence of the decision to refuse Seretse the right permanently to return until another chief had been established, offered him an appointment in the Colonial Service, in fact, in Jamaica.
About the same time, the Government made another decision which was not irrelevant to the situation, and it was that Tshekedi should be allowed to return to live in the Reserve as a private individual and under certain conditions. I believe that I have set out the history of the matter, as I thought it was fair to set it out, briefly and accurately, and I see that the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations nods to indicate that he agrees that I have done so fairly.
When that decision was announced in 1952 by the Under-Secretary of State, we made it clear from these Benches that we were opposed to it. We were not only opposed to it, but we complained, and I think with full justification, of the timing of that decision, for it became known to us before the day upon which this decision was announced that it was known to the Government that a deputation from the Bamangwato Tribe was on its way to London to make representations to the Secretary of State and the Government to reopen the matter and reconsider the return of Seretse. We believed that both the decision itself and


the timing of it were not justified. We opposed it at the time, and we made it perfectly clear, speaking for the Opposition, that we should not regard ourselves as being bound by those decisions, and we divided the House.
I have given the history to 1955. That was the end of the period at which, when we were the Government, we had pledged ourselves to review the whole situation. Although at the end of that period we were in opposition, we felt, having given our pledge, not only to this House but to the people of Bechuanaland and the people of this country, that we were under an obligation to review the matter ourselves. It was a difficult task for an Opposition to undertake, because it has not the facilities or opportunities which are open to a Government for reviewing the situation is a territory several thousand miles away.
We decided that that was our duty, however, and we did our very best. I want first to indicate the steps which we took to inform ourselves of the situation in 1955, to draw certain conclusions from them, and from those conclusions to make certain constructive proposals which I shall outline. I speak in particular for the National Executive of the Labour Party and, more particularly, for its Commonwealth and Colonies Sub-Committee, of which I am privileged to be a member.
We gave a good deal of time and thought to the matter, and we had the opportunity of speaking with many persons with knowledge and experience over the last few years in the life of the Bamangwato and in the Protectorate, in order to get their assessment of the situation. We also had the opportunity and privilege of discussing the matter fully with Seretse Khama, who was then, and still is, resident in London.
After considering those preliminary discussions, we came to the conclusion that to be able to assess the position fairly, fully and accurately, it was essential for someone, on our behalf, to proceed to the Protectorate and to the Reserve, make a full investigation in the territory, and to come back and report to us. We were fortunate in having available to us the services of our Commonwealth and Colonies Officer, Mr. John Hatch, who has considerable

experience and knowledge of Africa and African affairs. He went out to the territory in 1955.
When we approached the Commonwealth Relations Office, the Department at once readily and generously provided our officer with full facilities to conduct his investigation. He had the opportunity of meeting representatives of every section of the Bamangwato Tribe. He took the opportunity of discussing the situation very fully and formed certain tentative conclusions arising from his impressions. He had the opportunity of discussion with members of the Administration and of discussing the matter with the then High Commissioner.
I believe it will be accepted by the Under-Secretary of State that our Commonwealth Officer was able to make a full and searching examination of the whole position, and discussed it freely and frankly with all sections of the Administration and people in Bechuanaland. Within a short time, therefore, he was able to gather the views and reactions of the people about the existing situation, and their views about future policy.
When our officer returned, we considered his report and discussed it with persons who were available and who were good enough to give us the advantage of their experience and knowledge. As a result of all the steps which we took and of our careful consideration, we came to certain conclusions about the situation. I want to put before the House the conclusions at which we arrived.
First, we came to the conclusion that the issue of the future of the chieftainship was not considered as finally settled by the members of the Bamangwato Tribe. That is of very great importance. The whole purport of the policy and the changes in policy announced by the Government in 1952 was that it was essential, in their view, to make their decisions, to which I have already referred, in order to achieve permanency and finality in the situation. If their policy does not secure that end, it does not secure the aim which the Government were seeking to attain through that policy. The conclusion at which we arrived was that the issue of the future of the chieftainship was not then—and it is not now—considered


as settled by the members of the Bamangwato Tribe.
We came to another important conclusion—that it was virtually impossible—I choose my words carefully—to get a people like the Bamangwato, with whom tradition is so deeply rooted, to appoint a new chief whilst the man whom they regard as their chief is still alive. Indeed, we came to a further conclusion from that. The Government had pinned their faith in being able to induce the tribe to appoint another chief and had announced that when he was securely established and had built up his own native administration, they would be prepared to reconsider the position of Seretse Khama and would then be prepared to consider allowing him to return.
From our report and from our discussions, we came to the additional conclusion that if any section of the tribe should attempt to push or to influence the tribe towards the selection of another chief, it would not only be unsuccessful but might lead to serious conflict and possibly disorder within the tribe itself.
We concluded from that that the un-settlement and uncertainty which existed then, and which still exists, was retarding the development of the people. I do not think I am going too far in saying that it was preventing the development of what everyone regards as an essential part in the future development of these peoples—the development of representative institutions and councils. The Under-Secretary of State will perhaps be able to tell us what success, if any, has been obtained by our Administration in building representative institutions and in establishing and developing councils in the Bamangwato Tribe. Our evidence is that any attempts have so far completely failed.
The unsettlement, therefore, is having those two effects. It is retarding constitutional development along normal lines of representative institutions, and it is retarding economic development. Before I conclude, I shall refer to something which has happened since our examination and which makes the question of economic development of even greater urgency and importance.
From our examination of the problem, we also came to the conclusion that among the Bamangwato people there is an almost universal desire for the return

of Seretse himself. I will be frank. We also found that there is disagreement still, in particular, about the succession. We also found that the tribe would, as a whole, I think, welcome a new initiative to seek an agreement and a settlement, a settlement which would be generally acceptable to the tribe, and a settlement which would end the uncertainty which still continues.
The overwhelming majority of the tribe—I think I can go further than that and say the whole of the tribe—would welcome an approach to a new settlement in the way which we urged upon the Government, and that was that the Government should convene a conference of representatives of all the people, with Tshekedi Khama and Seretse Khama, here in London, at which the whole situation would be reviewed, at which the possibilities of arriving at a settlement could be discussed, and at which, it seems to us, there would be not only a readiness to discuss but a disposition to strive towards a settlement.
That is the action which we urged the Government to take when some of my colleagues and I were given an opportunity of meeting the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and of urging that upon him. He rejected our proposals. He rejected our proposals because, he said, the Government feared that any reopening of the position at any conference of that kind would not lead to a settlement but would lead to uncertainty.
The fact is that there still is uncertainty. There still is no settlement. The tribe still regard the position of the chieftainship as not finally settled. That is the uncertainty which is retarding the economic and other development of the people out there. The Government rejected the proposal which we put forward, and rejected it on the grounds that it would reopen the matter and create uncertainty, but that argument, in our view, falls to the ground because the Government have failed to achieve any of the things which they said they hoped would be accomplished by their policy and their decisions in 1952. Their policy of 1952 has not achieved any of the things which they sought. They have not been able to induce the tribe to appoint another chief. There has not been the development of representative institutions. They have not


here a people who, after four years of their policy of 1952, regard the matter as closed. It exists still, and we cannot leave it where it is.
Because we believe that the decisions of the Government in 1952 and their implementation have failed to achieve the purposes which the Government themselves told the House were the purposes that they had in mind, it is essential, in our view, that a new approach should be made to seek a settlement, and we put forward this very responsible and very constructive suggestion. We had a free and frank discussion with the Secretary of State, and discussed all possible items for an agenda of such a conference. I shall not tonight discuss them here in public because I still hope that the Government will think again, and I urge them to think again, about convening that conference, and if the conference is to be convened it will be far better, I think, that it should be convened without our having canvassed in public a possible agenda, or possible solutions of the problems which may emerge at the conference, and which the leaders of the tribe, with the Government and the Protectorate Administration, would discuss with a view to arriving at a settlement.
We are still convinced that if such an invitation were sent out the representative leaders of the Bamangwato people would come to the conference. We believe that Tshekedi Khama would come. We believe that Seretse Khama would come to the conference. We believe that if we called them together to a conference of that kind that conference would come to what I am sure we all want, a solution acceptable to the tribe, a settlement which would be regarded by the tribe as laying the foundation for their future development, and one which, having been accepted, would enable them to deal with the immense problems with which they are confronted. In that way we should create the circumstances and the atmosphere in which the social, economic and political development of the tribe could proceed.
I said that since 1955, when we discussed this problem, when we arrived at our conclusions, a new factor had entered into the situation, a new factor which, in our view, and, I think, in the view of

other Members of this House and also of the public outside, adds strength to the proposal which I have put forward. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will tell us something about this. Since a year ago there have been certain developments concerning the Protectorate's future, particularly its future economic development, which is a matter of very great importance. It is reported that certain mining companies are interested in the minerals in the territory in the Protectorate and in the Bamangwato Reserve, and in particular that one of the big companies interested in mining in Africa, Oppenheimers Anglo-American Group, is particularly interested in that.
Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State will say whether I am right or wrong, but I understand that the mineral rights in Bechuanaland are vested in the tribes. Bechuanaland is not a Colony: it is a Protectorate, in which the relationship between us and the people there is the relationship of a protector to the people there. I understand that the mineral rights in the whole of the Protectorate are vested in the tribes, and that the written consent of the tribes is essential for a concession; indeed, that it is obligatory upon us, by our act of protection, to obtain that consent.
I understand that attempts have been made to secure the consent of the Bamangwato tribe to the granting of this mineral concession, and, indeed, that of other tribes who are also affected within the Protectorate. My information is that the attempt to secure the consent of the tribe to the granting of the surveying rights and these concessions have so far failed. They have been discussed in what is their representative institution, the kgotla.
That brings me back to the main theme of my speech. I believe that the tribe will not come to a decision upon this matter in the absence of Seretse, and without this position being finally settled. The Under-Secretary of State will say whether I am right or wrong in stating the position, and whether I have stated it fairly or wrongly, but that is the position as I understand it.
Here is this territory, faced with this very big problem. Those of us familiar with Africa, particularly those of us familiar with Central Africa, know what


this new factor portends for this Protectorate. If there are mineral resources available, as it appears there are, and if they are developed by these enormous companies with their very great resources, the whole life of this people will be transformed. We have seen what tensions, what problems, are created by the sudden, rapid transformation by industrialisation of a country with a peasant economy. The minerals will not be worked, the mines will not be worked, economic and industrial developments will not take place, without Africans being brought to work in them.
We shall have here again another copper belt. There can be no settlement, no granting of these rights, without the consent of the tribe. It is clear to us that the tribe will not give their consent until these political problems of which I have been speaking are resolved. I hope, therefore, that there will be no attempt by Her Majesty's Government, or by the Administration or by anyone else, to try to get round this central fact in our relationship, that a development of this kind is not undertaken without their full voluntary consent. The fact is that so far their consent has not been given, and our information is that it will not be given until this problem is solved.
That seems to us to add great strength to the proposal which we put forward to the Government and which we repeat now. We believe that this matter is urgent and important, and in our view it is conclusive proof that the conclusions which we have arrived at and the recommendations which we have made are right. I hope, therefore, that Her Majesty's Government will give fresh consideration to this matter, that they will take the initiative which we have urged them to take, that they will call the conference which we have proposed, that they will invite representatives of all sections of the Bamangwato Tribe to the conference in London, and that out of that conference there can be the beginning of a settlement.
Among the other advantages of such a settlement would be the bringing together again of the uncle and the nephew. These are two outstanding men, both in their personal qualities and abilities. They are sorely needed by their people in their present stage of development, people who are on the threshold of an enormous development in their lives, and

who attach great prestige to the name of Khama.
If the Government reject the proposals we put forward, what is their alternative? The matter cannot be left where it is. We have put forward a responsible and constructive proposal, and we have put it forward after due thought and full consideration. We still believe that it is the best way to act, and we hope that Her Majesty's Government will act, and will act in time.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: I am sure that all hon. Members listen to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) with great interest and respect. The right hon. Gentleman knows that this is certainly my view, and my one regret is that when we discuss colonial and kindred matters I generally find myself in disagreement with the policy he advocates. I had hoped that this evening, on the eve of our Summer Recess, I might find myself for once, at least, able to agree with the recommendations and policies advocated by the right hon. Gentleman. I am sorry to say that once again I cannot do so, and I shall give my reasons for the view I take.
Before dealing with the main theme of the debate, the question of whether Seretse should be allowed to return, I want to say something about the important issues raised in the last part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, namely, the development of the mineral rights of the Protectorate, and those in the Bamangwato Reserve. I think I am right in saying that certain lands still belong to the Crown, but that the bulk of the land is vested in the Tribe, as the right hon. Gentleman said. It is also true that none of those minerals can be developed without the consent of the Tribe itself. That is right and proper and, as we all know, that position obtains in other parts of Africa.
I think I am also right in saying that the Tribe is not withholding its consent to the development because Seretse is not there. My information is that they want advice from one of the sons or from both sons of Khama, that is, from Seretse or Tshekedi, or both. Tshekedi is now a private individual. I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth


Relations will deal with this matter, because it is not right that I, as a back bencher, should deal with it. However, I can see no reason why it should not be possible for permission to be granted to Tshekedi to give that advice to the Tribe which, as far as I am aware, they will accept. Therefore, this matter does not necessitate the return of Seretse. I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend will correct me if I am wrong in that view.
I fully agree with the right hon. Gentleman that although this problem affects only a small tribe of 15,000 people it is a very important one, and I do not want to introduce any party politics into this debate any more than did the right hon. Gentleman. If I may respectfully say so, I thought he approached the problem in a very statesmanlike manner. He gave the previous history, with which those of us who take an interest in this matter, and who took part in the discussions of 1950 and 1951, are acquainted. At that time the present Labour Opposition were the Government of the day. However, I feel justified in recalling one or two other factors in the situation, which must be borne in mind if we are to approach this matter with a true appreciation of its background.
The problem of Seretse really started in the summer of 1949 as the result of his marriage to an English girl. I have said before in this House that I am not in favour of such marriages. I think that they are a mistake. All my experience indicates that. Nevertheless, as I have said before—

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: Would the hon. Gentleman say that the considerable experience of mixed marriages in the West Indies, and the tributes paid by Governors and others to their success, biologically and psychologically, is an argument in favour of the proposition he is now expressing?

Mr. Craddock: I am only expressing my own personal view. As I have said before in this House, I have had the experience of Africans, Indians and Europeans coming to me for advice and, rightly or wrongly, I have always expressed the view that mixed marriages are a mistake. However, I was going on to say that, even so, this is a matter for the individuals concerned. They are the

judges in the matter. I simply give my own opinion, but I mention this point because I take the view that the position of Seretse Khama was entirely different. After all, he was the heir to the kingdom and, as we know from experience in our own country, the Royal position is one which enjoys great privileges but. at the same time, carries with it great responsibilities. It has been a rule of the Bamangwato Tribe that the King, or the heir apparent, should marry one of his own kind.
That was where the trouble began, and it is a point which we should not forget in our approach to the problem. After that event, there was great disturbance in the Bamangwato Tribe. They held a kgotla to decide whether, in those circumstances, they would have Seretse back as their chief. The overwhelming decision at the first kgotla was against Seretse succeeding to the chieftainship. The right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) was Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations at the time.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I was not Secretary of State at the time. I became Secretary of State afterwards.

Mr. Craddock: I am sorry; I withdraw that. In any event, the Secretary of State at the time made a mistake in not accepting the overwhelming decision of that first kgotla.
A second kgotla was called and even at the second meeting it was agreed that, in the circumstances, Seretse could not go back, although this time the majority was only small. Finally, a third kgotla was held at which there was a majority in favour of Seretse. I believe, as I said at the time, that it was a mistake to hold the third kgotla. The decision of the first kgotla not to have Seretse back should have been accepted.

Mr. Wedgwood Benn: rose—

Mr. Craddock: I cannot give way. I have promised not to speak for long, for a large number of hon. Members wish to follow me in the debate.
If the decision of the first kgotla had been accepted by the Government at that time, we should not have had all this trouble. That is the background to the position and I think it important that it should be stated. Certainly, I believe that


the decision to ban Seretse from the chieftainship was right in view of his having disobeyed tribal laws and rules which have stood ever since time began. I do not believe that anyone occupying that position, whether the chieftainship of a tribe or the monarchy of a country, carrying great privileges but also great responsibilities, can have it both ways; he must make his choice, just as Seretse made his choice. In my view, it was a proper decision, therefore, that he should have been compelled to leave the country. I fully agree with the decision then taken in the light of the circumstances, and I also believe that the decision of the Government of 1952 was right. It would have been quite wrong to have allowed the situation to continue to create uncertainty.
Here, I am bound to say, my information is slightly different from that of the right hon. Member for Llanelly. I receive regular reports from that part of the world, and my information is that the country has been going along very well in the last year or two and that they are making progress. I believe that it would be unwise, certainly at this juncture, to do anything likely to create more uncertainty and perhaps to stir up feelings which have been dying, if they are not already dead.
Nor do I think it true to say that the fact that Seretse has been banished from his country is retarding development. My information—and I am sure my hon. and gallant Friend will deal with this point—is that one of the troubles is that they have not gone ahead with the formation of district councils. Frankly, I think that that is a mistake. I should have thought that every effort of our Administration and the officials on the spot ought to have been concentrated on encouraging the people of the Tribe to form district councils. As far as I am aware, there is no reason that they should not do so. I cannot think of a reason, and I shall be very interested to hear what my hon. and gallant Friend says about it.
I promised to be brief and I will conclude. Having a very great affection for the people of Africa, I feel most sincerely that it would be a great mistake at this stage to upset them and perhaps to create a great deal of strife at a time when, on my information, all is going well. I believe that if the Tribe are encouraged in the formation of district councils, they will make good progress.
I sincerely hope, therefore, that on this occasion the Government will not accept the advice of the Opposition to set up a commission of inquiry. Such a commission is not necessary. I feel very strongly that, in the light of present conditions, it is better to let things go on as they are. I hope, as does the right hon. Member for Llanelly, that the Tribe will go on in its development from strength to strength. Like all Africans, the Baman-gwato are a great people, and deserve all the help which we in the House can give them.

8.27 p.m.

Miss Jennie Lee: I am afraid that the type of help which the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Beresford Craddock) has offered to the Bamangwato Tribe and Bechuanaland in general is the type of help which does them no good and is doing us, as a people, very great harm. I do not know whether the hon. Member means to be over-patronising. I agree with him that royalty has its obligations and its hardships as well as its privileges, and that all people have their conventions, their prejudices and their tribal taboos.
The people of this island decided that they had a prejudice against an American lady marrying an English King. That was the affair of the Government of this country and the people of this country, and I think we should have resented it very much indeed if the people of Bechuanaland had sarted to lay down the law to us and to tell us what we had to do.
I am not forgetting that Bechuanaland is a Protectorate which depends upon this island in many respects. Nor am I forgetting that it is a comparatively small corner of the country of Africa. But it is not the size of this problem which gives it its importance. It is the intrinsic issues raised by the problem, and I am certain that these are not issues which are confined to Buchuanaland or any one part of it but are issues on which the whole of the African Continent is exceedingly sensitive.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: I do not wish the hon. Lady to misrepresent me. I thought I had made it clear that it was the decision of the Bamangwato themselves at their first kgotla not to accept Seretse. It was left to them, and their decision should have been accepted.

Miss Lee: But the hon. Member is flying in the face of all contemporary evidence by trying to base himself on a decision taken under the influence of immediate emotion. I am sure that it was a great shock to the tribe to find that their young chief had married an English lady, and they reacted in a certain way. However, they have had a long time to think about it and so have we. They soon revised their views.
The hon. Member for Spelthorne gave testimony which was in direct contradiction to the evidence given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths). We have all been watching developments with the greatest care. There can be no doubt that with the passage of time we are not getting a more settled atmosphere. With the passage of time we are again and again having the fact reiterated that his people insist on Seretse Khama going back.
I am not an admirer of the hereditary system, as I have said before: these debates are apt to recur and most of us have said before what we want to say, but we should at the same time examine the new evidence which comes before us. I am convinced that we shall not have the development of democratic government in that part of the world until we first overcome the terrific emotional hurdle of the injustice which they believe to have been done—and that is my view too—by the exile of the chieftain of the tribe.
I should like my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly to go even further than he has done. I hope that if we can get no satisfaction from the Government, not only right hon. Members, but the whole Labour movement and all Liberal opinion in Great Britain, with some Conservative opinion as well, will insist on bringing certainty into this uncertain situation by pledging now that when we have a Labour Government, Seretse Khama will go back. I am a little anxious about news going to Bechuanaland that the British House of Commons is suggesting that a conference should be held with Seretse Khama, Tshekedi Khama and other representatives brought to this country to discuss the situation. I am all in favour of such a conference but as a prelude to it there should, in my view, be a plain statement that Seretse Khama is going back.

Major Patrick Wall: Is the hon. Lady suggesting that Seretse Khama should go back as a private individual, or as chief of the Bamangwato Tribe.

Miss Lee: I am suggesting that he goes back as chief. He was not exiled because he had violated a constitutional law, nor because he had refused to be co-operative. He had not taken that position. We have had the example of the Kabaka of Buganda. We could not have had a more enlightened Governor than Sir Andrew Cohen. We had a man who meant very well by the people, but nevertheless we have to face the fact that if we, from this island, try to lay down the law to another people of another race, another colour and with other conventions, then all of them will unite against us for that first primitive right, as they consider it, that they shall decide who shall be their king, who will be the chief.
The size of the area and its state of economic development do not alter this fact. I see no possibility whatsoever of our doing our duty towards this tribe until we allow Seretse Khama to return. As has been said, great exciting possibilities are now opening up. An extremely poor people may very soon have the wherewithal to finance new villages, new roads, new schools, new hospitals, new amenities of every kind. What pleases me very much as a Socialist is that the potential wealth is now in the hands of the tribe and not in the hands of an individual, so that the tribe will not have to go through all the complicated processes through which we go in this country to see that all the people share the resources of the country as these are developed.
I hope that the Under-Secretary will have something hopeful to say to us at the end of the debate. One condition I lay down as absolutely essential is that Seretse Khama should go back. If we cannot get that firm promise from the Government, I hope that we shall get a firm assertion from the Opposition. As my right hon. Friend said, we have had uncertainty since 1952. The banishment should not have taken place in the first instance, but we need not go back over all that.
There has been at least five years' banishment and we must all be impressed by the dignity with which Seretse Khama


and his wife have gone through those difficult years. It is not easy for a young couple to have to face, early in their married life, all the difficulties which they have had to face.
Anybody who has been pestered by the Press of Great Britain knows that it takes strong character and a great deal of dignity and concern for the privacy of the home and for one's family in order not to be cheapened and vulgarised in a thousand and one ways. But I am now on a rather false argument, because even if Seretse Khama had been far less able and distinguished a man than he is, and his wife Ruth a less lovely and gifted lady than she is, the essential argument still stands that we cannot even begin to make the constitutional or economic progress which could be made until we first right the wrong which has been done to these people.
I very much hope that when Seretse Khama returns to his country he and Tshekedi Khama, his uncle, can co-operate in developing the resources of their country. But I very definitely do not want to see, during the remaining period of the present Government—which may be a month or two, or alas, a year or two—a continuing uncertainty in this matter. This is probably the last chance that the Government will have to take the initiative.
My right hon. Friend could not have stated our case with greater moderation, and I can assure the hon. and gallant Member that, if he cannot meet this case, the next statement which will come from a united Labour movement, with the support of many more people, will be an immediate promise that when we come back Seretse will return, and that the people out there can consider what they are going to do today in the light of that promise for the future. They must know today what is going to happen to them tomorrow—and what is going to happen tomorrow, so far as hon. Members on this side of the House are concerned, is, first, that the wrong which we have done them will be undone and, only following that can there be a building up of both the economic and the democratic potentialities of this sorely tried people.

8.37 p.m.

Major Patrick Wall: I find myself in a considerable amount of agreement with the summary of the situation put before us by the right

hon. Gentleman the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, but I disagree with the solution proposed by the hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee), and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does so too. If Seretse is brought back immediately, or in the near future, as chief of the Bamangwato, we shall be right back where we were four years ago. We shall stir up all the old controversies which still exist, and have achieved nothing at all.
I think the House will agree that although the matter is not settled for the Bamangwato, conditions are far more favourable than they were four years ago, and the last thing we want to do is put the clock back. The right hon. Gentleman said that the future leadership of the Tribe was not settled, and I agree with him. He also said that the Tribe was most unlikely to agree to the appointment of a new chief, or to appoint one themselves, while either Seretse or Tshekedi are alive. I agree that the matter of chieftainship should be settled, as present uncertainty is hindering the development of the Tribe. I also agree with the right hon. Gentleman that even now there would be a considerable amount of disagreement over the return of Seretse, and especially with regard to the succession of his heir. This is not because he married an Englishwoman, but because he married without the approval of the tribal elders and, I believe, without even consulting them. When he did that the succession was immediately put in jeopardy.
What are we to do? The right hon. Gentleman suggests that we should bring leading people from Bechuanaland to this country for a conference. I suggest that that might create even more difficulties than it solved. How are we to select these people? If they are selected by Government officials they will be suspect, and what will be the respective proportions of the supporters of Seretse, Tshekedi and others and how is this to be decided? It will be extremely difficult to hold an impartial conference in this country.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I do not think that there is any difficulty about selecting conference representatives besides Seretse and Tshekedi. If I do not elaborate the point now, it is only because my right hon. Friend will deal with it if he catches Mr. Speaker's eye.

Major Wall: I thank the right hon. Gentleman.
I think that an alternative suggestion is the development of district councils. If we introduced district councils at tribal level—they do not now exist—we should be erecting a democratic organisation with whom we could consult. I admit that the drawback to the suggestion is that it would take time, but I do not believe that it would take as long as all that. It might well be a case of slow but sure. It is quite likely that, having initiated the proper democratic machinery of elected representatives which would be in proportion to the feeling of the Tribe, expression would then be given to the opinion of the Tribe as a whole. I believe that a system of elected councils at tribal level would provide a better and more enduring answer than would a conference in this country at the present time.
I am sure that I speak for hon. Members on both sides of the House when I say that we all desire the development, not only of the Bamangwato and Bechuanaland, but of all the High Commission Territories. For various reasons most of us dislike the doctrine of apartheid in the Union of South Africa and it is up to us to show, in the territories under the Government, and under the control of this House, an example which can be set against apartheid. The Government of the Union are always bringing forward the fact that they spend so much on developing native schools, and so on, and the more economic development which we can achieve in the territories, the better will be the standard of living of the people there and the more effective the contrast to apartheid.
Mining concessions have been mentioned, and that reinforces the point made by the right hon. Gentleman. My information is that the Bamangwato will not decide on these concessions—and it is their right to do so—without advice from a son of Khama. Therefore, it is essential that this advice should be available in the long run, and I suggest that, in the long run, this will be achieved by having elected councils and by consulting with them.

8.42 p.m.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: I found myself in very strong agreement with the concluding remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for

Haltemprice (Major Wall), and before I conclude I should like to refer to his speech. I wish also to refer to the speech of my neighbour—we actually share the representation in this House of one small village—the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Beresford Craddock).
I welcome the fact that we are at last discussing this subject. I was one of the small group of hon. Members who opposed the original decision to banish Seretse Khama. We opposed it, even though that decision was taken by a Labour Government of whom we were supporters. It gives us great delight that now, after a period of years, this matter is being raised, officially by Her Majesty's Opposition, and that such progress should have been made.
May I briefly state the grounds on which a number of us are opposed to the banishment of Seretse Khama? First, we take it on the quite simple principle of human rights. I have never been able to understand how anyone could possibly defend the action of an external Government in taking a man from another territory and another race, lifting him from among his own people, and deciding to banish him—in the case of the Labour Government for a period of years, and for all time, as Her Majesty's present Government have done.
That seems an infringement of human personal liberty of which it is just impossible to think. It destroys entirely democratic criticism of totalitarian Governments in the world who, when they practise these things across the Iron Curtain, are the subject of denunciation by hon. Members on both sides of this House.
The right of an individual who was born in a territory, has been living in the territory and belongs to its people to live in that territory is an elementary human right, and for anyone, whether a Minister or a person in any other position, to deny it is to accept for himself the denial of elementary human principles.
Secondly, we were opposed to the banishment of Seretse Khama because it was a denial of the principles of democracy. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Spelthorne is not now in his place. He argued in the House that the first kgotla, or tribal assembly, denounced Seretse Khama for his marriage and


wished to disown him as its chief. There were three kgotlas. It is true that the first, under the emotion of the moment, repudiated Seretse Khama as its chief. One recognises that on the African side, as on the European side, there is sometimes racial consciousness and the colour bar.
The kgotla met again and discussed the matter further, and was undecided. The third kgotla, when there had been an opportunity to discuss all the relevant facts, came to the overwhelming conclusion that it wished Seretse Khama to return to it with Ruth Khama as his wife and as its chief. No one who has followed the situation in Bechuanaland since, and the feelings of the Bamangwato Tribe, can have any doubt that that is the overwhelming desire and wish of the Bamangwato people.
We in this House claim to accept democratic principles, yet the Government say to the Bamangwato Tribe, in Bechuanaland, "You shall not have the chief whom you desire and who, years ago, by overwhelming vote in your assembly, you desired should return." The Tribe has remained true to that principle ever since. I do not know how many times Her Majesty's Government have tried to get the kgotla to change its decision. They have called it again and again, but it stands by its view. The Government even imposed a Native Authority upon the kgotla, but the kgotla has rejected him as its chief year after year.
I wonder how any hon. Gentleman, or Her Majesty's Government, can dare to assert that they hold democratic principles. A tribe in Africa, year after year, despite all the circumstances against it, says, "We want this man to return as our chief", while the Government, claiming to accept democratic principles, have the impudence and arrogance to sit on the Front Bench of a Parliament thousands of miles away, here in Westminster, and say to that tribe. "You have no right to choose your own chief. We shall not allow him to return and we impose a Native Authority upon you."

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Commander Allan Noble): Perhaps I might answer the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) on that point, which, I think, was also made by the

hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee). I should like to refer right hon. and hon. Members opposite to the White Paper of 1950, which was published by their Government. Paragraph 18 of that White Paper said:
His Majesty's Government have a wide responsibility for the well-being and good government of the Protectorate as a whole, and of the other High Commission Territories. In particular, they have in this respect a duty in matters of disputed successions that they must discharge. The opinion of the tribal assembly can only be one of the factors contributing to their decision.
That is in the White Paper of 1950, published by the Labour Government.

Mr. Brockway: The hon. and gallant Gentleman must know that the quotation of that passage makes no impression on my mind or upon the minds of those of us who opposed the action of our own Labour Government, because we then felt that it was a denial both of human liberty and of democracy.

Commander Noble: I quite understand that, but I thought that this was the moment for that to be put on record.

Mr. Brockway: That has been put on record before, but we reject even the argument reflected in that paragraph and, as I shall show, the whole history of the Bamangwato Tribe and Bechuanaland since confirms the criticism we made then and which we emphasise in our speeches now.
In my experience of this House I do not know any part of the British Commonwealth or the British Empire whose civil servants are so ill-informed of what is happening in a territory as the civil servants who serve the Commonwealth Relations Office in relation to Bechuanaland. I think that that is due to the fact that the High Commissioner for the Protectorates does not even live in the Protectorates; he lives in the Union of South Africa. The Protectorates are regarded almost as the forgotten children of the British Commonwealth. They are treated in a way which can only encourage the Government of the Union of South Africa to turn their eyes on those Protectorates. Not only the hon. and gallant Gentleman on the Front Bench, but the hon. Member for Spelthorne and other hon. Members, are being kept in the dark regarding the real opinion of the Bamangwato people today.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: How can the hon. Member say that that is the case when his Government and this Government have given quite substantial grants out of colonial development and welfare funds in order to help those territories?

Mr. Brockway: That intervention is so irrelevant that I am hardly going to deal with it. Of course I am aware of the contributions that have been made, but I would also say very strongly that those contributions are utterly inadequate to the needs of those peoples and the importance of those territories at the present time.
I do not know how anyone can have any doubt that the exclusion of Seretse Khama from Bechuanaland is preventing the social and economic and political development of that country. Among a large number of the Bamangwato Tribe there is now an attitude of non-co-operation with the British Administration. It is the same technique that Gandhi adopted in India, "We decline to recognise the Native Authority which the British Government have imposed upon us. We decline to recognise this British Administration. We will not co-operate with it." Whilst the effect of that among masses of the people may not be strong, its effect among the leaders of the people is very strong indeed. During the last two or three years the headmen, sub-chiefs and other native representatives who have supported Seretse Khama have either had to give up their positions in the Administration or, for one reason or another, those positions in the Administration have been discontinued.
I say to the hon. and gallant Gentleman that with a Tribe like the Bamangwato, in which the number of people who can be selected for administrative purposes is relatively small, to have lost some of the best leadership—as we have because of the situation in Bechuanaland—has been one of the factors responsible for the position there. I have drawn attention in this House to certain brutalities which have occurred in the course of the native administraton. I am not saying for one moment that they are the direct result of having had headmen who, because of the issue of Seretse Khama, have been particularly vicious with their people. What I am saying is that because we cannot now select the best people for that job, due to the attitude of non-co-operation of

the Tribe itself, we are getting people who cannot control that position as it ought to be controlled,
I should like to acknowledge that, as a result of the exposures which have been made in this House, the beating of women in public has now been made illegal. I want to acknowledge that, as a result of exposures made in this House, the beating of children in public at the kgotla has been made illegal. But I say to the Under-Secretary of State that until he gets the co-operation of the best men in that tribe—who so frequently are the supporters of Seretse Khama—to act as administrators, he is likely to have these old tribal antagonisms finding expression in the kind of brutalities that have occurred.
I was very glad to hear the plea made by the hon. and gallant Member for Haltemprice for the development of district councils, but does he really believe that we will be able to build up an administration of democracy in Bechuanaland when the majority of the Tribe have an attitude of antagonism to the British Administration or, at least, of non cooperation with it? In circumstances like that, we cannot begin to build up the system of democracy. I should welcome a system of district elected councils, but it is hopeless to attempt to begin to develop democracy within the tribe when we ourselves begin by denying the very principle of democracy in the choice of chiefs.
The economic aspect has been emphasised, and I need not argue it at length, but I want to say this to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. The Tribe has the right to decide how its mineral resources shall be utilised. There is now on the Front Bench opposite a very dangerous tendency to give to the Native Authority whom the Government have appointed, all the powers of a chief selected by the tribe. When the Government first appointed a Native Authority they emphasised the difference between that Native Authority and a chief. I have had a letter from the Under-Secretary of State within the last month which seemed to indicate that the Native Authority had the powers of a chief.

Commander Noble: By law.

Mr. Brockway: I want to warn the Government very strongly indeed against


the application of that legal power. If they do it, they will only make the situation in Bechuanaland worse.
Finally, I should like to welcome the proposal which has been made by my right hon. Friend. I should like to remind the House that that proposal was introduced in a Resolution adopted by the last Labour Party Conference by these words:
We believe the time has come when the exiling of Seretse Khama from Bechuanaland should be reconsidered".
That is the principle on which we began to consider this proposal for a conference to settle this issue. I should like this conference to be called. I should like to see Tshekedi Khama and Seretse Khama coming together on this issue.
I should like to see Raseboli, the Native Authority, and representatives of the Bamangwato Tribe being brought together by the Government to try to bring about a settlement of this issue. But the first principle must be the right of Seretse to return to his country and his Tribe when it is the desire of the Tribe that he shall so return.
Perhaps I might make a plea for one more thing, because there has been some misunderstanding about it. One of the real tragedies of the situation in Bechuanaland has been the tendency towards conflict between those two sons of the great Khama, Tshekedi and Seretse Khama. There are few things which I should desire more than that agreement could be come to between them. I wish it were possible, even during the present visit of Tshekedi Khama to this country, to bring about some agreement between them. If that agreement could be obtained, we should, I believe, go very far towards ensuring the success of the conference for which my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has pleaded.
Certainly, while asking that Seretse Khama should have the right to go back to Bechuanaland, one also urges with equal determination that Tshekedi Khama should have every right in Bechuanaland to carry on his political activities and his public life and make his contribution to his people.
The Protectorates, two of them islands of territory within the Union of South Africa, one of them on the edge of South Africa, may be of tremendous importance to the whole future of Africa. If

we are to influence the Union of South Africa it would be by making those Protectorates models of racial equality and of educational, social and political advance.
It is a tragedy that, instead of Bechuanaland appearing like that to the rest of Africa, it has become a symbol of the colour bar because of our treatment of Seretse and Ruth Khama. [HON MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, indeed; one can scarcely go to a country in Africa today and mix with the African people themselves, not with the European settlers, without hearing of Bechuanaland, because of our treatment of Seretse Khama, as a symbol of the colour bar throughout the whole of that Continent.
It is a great tragedy that that should have occurred in a territory so near to the Union of South Africa. We want to make a plea tonight to the Government that they will seek to build up the Protectorates as symbols of racial equality and of educational, social and political development, because if we want to influence events in the Union of South Africa that is, the best contribution that we can possibly make.

9.5 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White: I had at one time thought that this debate would have started a little earlier than in fact it did so that we might have had the opportunity to discuss some of the wider considerations in the High Commission Territories. The Minister will be much relieved to know that I do not propose to raise these wider considerations tonight, because although we are not actually formally limited in time, nevertheless we are approaching a fairly late hour and there are other hon. Members who wish to speak.
I am very glad that we have had this opportunity of discussing once again this very difficult subject. I will not go over the past history, because I think it is familiar to all of us who are taking part in the debate. I should only like to say that I think we are discussing a tribe which has certain characteristics which one must remember if one is to speak realistically. One of these is that it is a tribe which, I am sorry to say, has been noted for its dissensions, and, though some of the differences which there may have been in the last few years may have had some cause in the relationship


between Seretse Khama and Tshekedi Khama, that relationship is nothing new in the Bamangwato.
It is a tribe which is inclined to have factions and feuds. It is also a tribe which has been accustomed to very strong leadership for many years. Sometimes, perhaps, that leadership has been too strong, and for that reason the great mass of the tribe is rather apt to take a passive attitude and wait for a lead from above. That has been its experience in the past, both with Tshekedi and with the Great Khama.
I think that one has to remember these things, because they have a very considerable bearing on what is the wisest thing to do in present circumstances. The tribe has been deprived of the kind of strong leadership to which it has been for so long accustomed, and I am not now arguing whether that leadership was wise or not, but the fact remains that the tribe has been accustomed to it and is now left without the leaders to whom it has previously looked. It is true that Tshekedi Khama is permitted to live as a private citizen within the area of the tribe, but his activities are very much circumscribed, and Seretse, of course, is in exile. The tribe, therefore, cannot effectively look to either of these natural leaders for advice or assistance, and that seems to me to be a very difficult state of affairs.
It is true that there is a person who was appointed as Native Authority. He has not been recognised as chief, and, with the very best will in the world, although he has admirable qualities, I do not think that anyone would suggest that Rasebolai is a strong leader. Therefore, he does not fill the vacuum which was very suddenly left, so that we are confronted with a situation in which we are called upon to exercise wisdom and statesmanship, which is what I hope the Under-Secretary will apply in trying to meet this difficult situation.
The mere fact that there have been no serious acts of violence—I am not speaking now of some individual and relatively minor acts of violence or persecution or complaints of maladministration—the mere fact that there has been no organised violence or anything of that sort in the tribal area should not lead us to imagine that everything is positively as

well as it might well be. As other hon. Members have pointed out, we are at this moment at a point of time in the development of the Protectorate when some leadership is very important indeed.
We have spoken of the possible economic developments. The whole question of both railway and mineral development is extremely important. It is important that not merely should the tribe be asked for its consent, which, I think the Government agree, is necessary constitutionally, for the purpose of mineral concessions within the tribal area. I am not sure of the position concerning railway concessions, and should be interested to know from the Under-Secretary of State whether the same principle applies. In any event, whether there is legal obligation or not to obtain the tribe's formal consent, the fact remains that developments of that kind should be fully and thoroughly discussed with the tribe by people of its own population who can understand the issues involved.
There are not very many people among the Bamangwato who are able to grasp the full implications of some of these economic developments. It does a great disservice to the tribe to deprive it of the kind of leadership to which it is entitled and which it ought to have, but which it cannot possibly have in present circumstances.
There are other important developments in education and in other directions which should be pushed forward. As the hon. and gallant Member for Haltem-price (Major Wall) so rightly said, we are in a very difficult moral position vis-à-vis the Union of South Africa when we say—unitedly, I am happy to think—that we could not contemplate handing over the High Commission Territories, and when, at the same time, it is obvious that we have not so far developed the social or educational services in the High Commission Territories to anything like the extent that they are developed in the Union of South Africa. We are now trying to catch up. We were glad to have the recent White Paper on Economic Development and Social Services in the High Commission Territories, but the resources of leadership are necessary to maintain pressure on the administration and to see that the tribe and the people have a real understanding of what one is aiming at


and what is required to meet the new conditions.
Too much emphasis can be placed upon the question of chieftainship. I think that the period of indirect rule through an individual chief is something of the past. We are moving away from that conception. This applies just as much in the Bamangwato area as anywhere else.
I should like to say a few words in parenthesis, although I do not want to draw too close a parallel between things which are not really parallel. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) referred to the Kabaka having been exiled and being allowed ultimately to return. The Kabaka, however, returned in rather different conditions. Considerable constitutional changes had been argued out in the meantime, and when he went back, admittedly as Kabaka, the constitutional position was very different from the time when he left. That is not a fully parallel case and I do not want to draw an unreal comparison, but, after all, time has passed since 1950, and, whatever we think about what was done at that time, we ought now to be thinking of what we must do in the immediate future.
We ought surely to proceed not only more rapidly than the Government think desirable, but more rapidly than they think possible. The time has come when we should press on with a form of representative Government which would make it posible to utilise the services of the best talent in the tribe, both among the Bamangwato and, I should hope, also in the other tribes of the Protectorate. I think that is the only way in which we can hope to have adequate and intelligent discussion of these very important changes which are coming about.
At the moment there are advisory bodies, but they have no right to demand to discuss matters beforehand. They can be presented with reports, etc. on which they can express opinions, but that is all. They cannot do more than that. I do not think that that form of administration is adequate, or will prove adequate in the coming years. So I think that generally the emphasis should be on developing representative Government.
That policy has been supported on both sides of the House. In that way we may find a solution to this very difficult problem of how to fit the Khamas into the

situation in that area. I do not see how else we can do it. I do not see how else we can bring in the resources of both Seretse and Tshekedi and the other persons who have allied themselves with one or the other of these leading figures, and who, in present circumstances, find it very difficult to co-operate with people who have taken an opposite view on this very awkward question. I think we could very well bring both of them into some such representative body. That is my opinion; others may hold another opinion.
Because I regard that as one possible solution, I think it ought to be very seriously considered. My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), very properly, I think, speaking, as he was, from our Front Bench, did not wish to commit himself to an agenda for the proposed conference. I can quite understand that, but I think that we on the back benches should put forward possible solutions, and this, I think, is one of the solutions which ought to be very seriously considered.
The Government hold the view that if the tribe were to choose some other chief, and if he were firmly established, they could consider the return of Seretse Khama as a private citizen. However, that simply will not happen. I do not think that anybody will now really seriously argue that the' Bamangwato will choose another chief. I think, therefore, that that is now, whatever may have been thought previously, an unrealistic assumption. If that is an unrealistic assumption, then, so far as the Conservative Government are concerned, Seretse is to be permanently an exile. That means that there will always be a source of possible discontent in the tribe.
My view is that, better than having him as a martyr at a distance, it would really be far healthier for the life of the tribe for Seretse to go back. Of course, the terms or conditions on which he should go back would have to be discussed, but he certainly should go back.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) said, quite apart from the situation in the Bamangwato Reserve, there is also the very difficult position in which we are put by being charged not merely with having deposed him as chief but with exiling a man in perpetuity because of a mixed


marriage, a charge which we find very difficult to defend ourselves against, as my hon. Friend said, in the West Indies, for instance, where there are some very distinguished statesmen—Prime Ministers, indeed—who are obviously descended from mixed marriages. Therefore, that wider issue must be in our minds.
From the much narrower point of view of the tribe itself, I think it would be to its great advantage if the full resources of the Khama family could be given proper opportunity to assert themselves in modern conditions. This is an urgent matter which should be resolved in view of the exceedingly important developments which are likely to take place during the next two years.

9.20 p.m.

Miss Joan Vickers: I did not intend to intervene in the debate, but I should like, if I may, to correct the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fanner Brockway), who made too much of this question of the colour bar. I understand that in a great many of these countries—as, in fact, in countries like Malaya, in which I have spent a great deal of time—and in a great many tribes it is not necessarily a question of inter-marriage between one race and another. It is a question of the different traditions of the peoples themselves. An inter-tribal marriage within Africa might have created equally difficult reactions in the tribe itself. That has happened in many countries. For instance, the son of a Sultan of Malaya may marry someone of another race, not necessarily a European race.
I suggest to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough that he is laying too much emphasis on the point that the trouble arose primarily because Seretse Khama married a girl of European origin. I think that the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) is right in thinking that the days of the great chiefs are really past. We recognise that in their ways they were quite despotic in their behaviour, but with gradual education that sort of rule will not be necessary.
I wish to pay tribute to Tshekedi Khama for the way in which he behaved when he was deprived of his rights, and to point out that it is possible to sink

one's political feelings and to go back and become a citizen of the territory concerned. I hope that we shall this evening consider such a return in the case of Seretse Khama, because his uncle has been able to fulfil the pledge which he gave. It may be possible for Seretse Khama also to go back on similar conditions, and then to proceed to the working out of local councils such as the hon Lady the Member for Flint, East suggested.
I think that these local councils are essential for both Africans and Europeans. There is room at present for eight such councils. I am rather frightened of breaking them down into too small units and dividing the tribes into clans, thus creating further disunity among the people. I should like my hon. Friend to consider setting up those councils as soon as possible.
We must get down to the task of opening up the industry of that country. One thing which has not been mentioned so far is the fact that over 4,000 people from the territory migrate to South Africa every year. When they return they feel very unsettled, which does not help the welfare and happiness of the country. I feel that if we could have these councils in which Europeans and Africans could get together in the district we might eventually have representatives from the councils sent to a central council. That might well be the beginning of self-government within the tribe.
I feel that we must get on with this matter as soon as possible because I rather fear that, owing to the difficult economic conditions in these territories at the present time, the Government might be tempted to take action to expropriate the land in order to develop the mineral resources in it so that the people may enjoy the type of life which we desire them to have. If matters go on too long as they are there may be that temptation. Therefore, I suggest that the sooner we encourage these people to form these councils and to realise the great benefits which they may receive if they can work out for themselves how to open up the land with the kind of help mentioned by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), the better for the happiness of all concerned.

9.25 p.m.

Mr. Clement Davies: I desire to intervene for only a few moments to support the excellent and reasonable appeal, full of understanding for this matter, made by the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White).
I do not want to enter tonight into all that has happened with regard to Seretse and Tshekedi Khama. My view of the action taken over six years ago is well known because I have too often debated this matter in the House. Six years and more have now elapsed since that great evil was done. It was a great evil because there is nothing more cruel than banishing a man from his own people. To send a man to live among people with different traditions and a different culture, to hear a different language, is a great evil. Over 2,000 years ago one of the wisest men the world has known, whose teachings are still regarded by us as those which have guided mankind and should guide mankind, chose death rather than to be banished from his own people.
So the evil that was done six years ago has not yet been remedied. The position is very unsatisfactory and I join with the hon. Lady in appealing to the Government to make an entirely new approach to this matter. They have tried, genuinely and hard, to get this matter settled. But it remains unsettled in an area which is of supreme importance, because the whole of Bechuanaland is like a Naboth's vineyard close to South Africa, and without doubt there are covetous eyes upon it. It has been necessary for strong statements to be made from the Box opposite, particularly by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), which have shown our determination to give these people the protection that we undertook to give them when the Great Khama first approached us to render that protection.
The position there is most unsatisfactory. And these are people who are exceptionally gifted. In particular, the Bamangwato Tribe have established their own independence, and by that, by their own strong arm and by their own methods, they had become leaders amongst all the neighbouring tribes. So much so that a large number of the smaller ones threw themselves under their protection. These people can see

developments taking place in other parts, whereas they are not developing as their gifts and talents would undoubtedly develop if they had proper guidance now.
Socially, politically and economically there has not been the development there that there should have been during these last six years. Not only have they lost the guidance of a chief but, even though Tshekedi Khama has gone back as a private citizen, they have not yet had the full advantage of all the experience and knowledge which that remarkable man could put, not only at their disposal, but at the disposal of the Government. So highly do the Government regard his gifts that they are using him for other purposes, but within the limit of his own people his activities are circumscribed.
Therefore has not the time come for a different approach to be made? Again I agree with what the hon. Lady has said. The idea of chieftainship is gradually fading away and modern ideas are taking its place. One of the foremost in asking the Government to turn their minds to that matter has been Tshekedi Khama.
I will not enter into the details of this matter but merely join the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East in asking for an entirely new approach. The best way may be that of calling the conference suggested by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths). In any event, something must be done to put an end to the chaotic position which is trampling down the development which would otherwise take place.

9.31 p.m.

Mr. Archer Baldwin: I was not present for the early stages of the debate and had not intended to take part in it, but, having listened to the last four speakers, I feel that I must say a few words. First, I thoroughly endorse what has been said about the chaotic position in Bechuanaland and I hope that the Government will take a hand in straightening it out. It is true that the tribal system is breaking down and, as the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) said, something must take its place.
I want to see something done to put Tshekedi not in charge of his own Tribe but at a higher level, because he is an


outstanding African. He has shown what sort of a man he is by the attitude which he has adopted in the last five or six years since this trouble started in Bechuanaland. I hope that the day has now come when Seretse and Tshekedi can settle their differences by Tshekedi taking a bigger job, which he is capable of doing, in Bechuanaland but not confined to his own Tribe. I think that there are great possibilities.
Having said that I agree almost entirely with the last hon. Members who have spoken, I must now disagree with the complaint of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) about the attitude of the European and the African in Bechuanaland. I had the pleasure of meeting Tshekedi this afternoon at a meeting at which he was asked that very question—how do the Europeans and the Africans get on with one another in Bechuanaland? He said that the relationship was good, and I agree that it is good. Many Europeans in Bechuanaland get on very well with the Africans and there are many people, such as storekeepers, who are doing a great service for the Africans.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: I was not aware that I made any reference whatever to Europeans and Africans in Bechuanaland.

Mr. Baldwin: In that case, I am greatly mistaken, but I shall be interested to see HANSARD tomorrow morning, because I thought the hon. Gentleman made his old claim about the colour bar in Bechuanaland. That colour bar will gradually be broken down if we make use of such men as Tshekedi and do not try to stir up differences between black and white. Let us make use of these outstanding Africans and the problem will settle itself in the course of evolution. We cannot settle it quickly.
The hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East referred to the better standard which the African had achieved in South Africa and which is higher than that in Bechuanaland. South Africa has the benefit of great mineral wealth, which is being used to help the Africans, although I do not agree with the system in South Africa. They make use of their great wealth in bringing a better standard of life to the Africans.
I want to see two things in Bechuanaland. First, I want to see the time come

when a West African port will be an accomplished fact. We cannot develop Bechuanaland as an agricultural country unless we have some system of transport for the produce. Such a port would enable an agricultural country to be developed. Secondly, I want to see a geological survey made of Bechuanaland to discover what mineral wealth the country possesses.

Mr. Gordon Walker: One has been made.

Mr. Baldwin: I have not seen it, but, from what Tshekedi Khama said, not much attempt has been made with the geological survey. I cannot think that that part of Africa between two countries with vast mineral wealth does not have mineral wealth somewhere. If we want to advance the Africans, we must make use of that mineral wealth, and by that I mean that I do not want the West Coast port used to take the minerals out of Africa. I want the minerals in the country to be developed for the benefit of the people there.
I hope that we shall not have too much talk about the colour bar and that we will make full use of Africans like Tshekedi Khama who will help to bring Africans out of the present primitive state in which they are now living.

9.35 p.m.

Mr. Wedgwood Benn: The reason for this debate is, of course, that my right hon. and hon. Friends decided to raise this as one of the Adjournment subjects before the Summer Recess, but the need for it stems from the failure of the policy of banishment of Seretse Khama, which, in its final form, goes back to 1952. My suggestion to the House tonight is that we should realise that the onus of responsibility rests with the Government to show what policy they have for the Protectorate.
I listened to the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Beresford Craddock) with very great care, and as I listened I followed the same speech which he made four years ago on the previous occasion when we debated the subject. It was so much the same that some of the same stories appeared four years ago. I preferred the first version, because four years ago it was a little more related to the circumstances of the time. I admit that I thought it was a little irrelevant,


four years ago, to lay stress on the first kgotla which was three years before that. But tonight, seven years after that kgotla, the hon. Member bases himself on what happened at that kgotla, which was to consider whether Seretse should be chief.

Mr. Beresford Craddock: I stressed that because, as I tried to explain, the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) gave the original facts of the case and I thought that it was only right that other facts should be put, even at this late stage.

Mr. Benn: If the hon. Member looks at HANSARD for 28th March, 1950, he will find that there was a very long debate on the meaning of these kgotlas, and their significance was by no means uncontested. At any rate, whether we argue about those or not, today we are testing a policy which was brought out by the present Government in 1952. This was the policy of the so-called final settlement of the Seretse Khama issue. It was achieved after a great deal of consideration and after a change of Commonwealth Relations Secretary about six months after the Conservatives came into power.
I have the HANSARD of that debate with me, and I propose—not with a view to saying, "I told you so", but with a view to seeing how far the hopes then expressed have failed to be realised—to read two or three extracts from the speech of the hon. Member for Spelthorne on that occasion, and from the speech of the Minister who replied to the debate. The hon. Member, who was speaking about a speech I had made on that occasion, said:
At the moment in the Bamangwato Reserve the whole of the tribal life is disintegrating. This action will do more than anything else to restore the tribal pride of the Bamangwato."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th March, 1952; Vol. 498, c. 907.]
That action was the banishment of Seretse Khama and nobody today has at any stage, whatever else they have said, claimed that the hon. Member was proved to be right in those words.
In fact, everybody admits that the tribal pride of the Bamangwato is far from being restored by this position. I intend to rub the hon. Member's nose in this. I listened to his speech. I will give way if he likes, but I shall go on when I get up again. He went on to say—and this is again a reference to the banishment of Seretse Khama:

I think that the steps that have been taken will have nothing but a good effect, once more cementing together the whole of the Bamangwato tribe."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th March, 1952; Vol. 498, c. 909.]

Mr. Beresford Craddock: That is the point at issue. I am sure that the hon. Member will go on to say that that has not come about. I take the view, and I have the support of many of my hon. Friends, that there has been a vast improvement in the conditions of tribal life and the progress made in the Bamangwato since 1952. I know that the hon. Member does not agree, but that is my opinion.

Mr. Benn: We are now examining what I wanted to examine, which is the record of the last four years. The hon. Member looked round expansively just now and said that he had many of his hon. Friends on his side. He should read, in tomorrow's HANSARD, the report of the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin), which deeply impressed me, particularly in its references to the possible rôle which Tshekedi could play in Bechuanaland as a whole. He used the word "chaos" in referring to the state of the Bamangwato Tribe. The hon. and gallant Member for Haltemprice (Major Wall) also took a different view. I am only suggesting that the wise words which hon. Members opposite have so often put up against the so-called emotional appeal of my right hon. Friend have turned out to be wrong.
My charge about the last four years is that the banishment of Seretse Khama was based upon the belief, which the Minister repeated, that it would lead to the selection of a new chief. The hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Mr. J. Foster), who was then the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, said this:
… making the exclusion permanent instead of temporary is necessitated by the fact that until the Bamangwato have a chief round whom to group themselves they can be in no position to make the progress we want."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th March, 1956; Vol. 498, c. 948.]
The whole case for banishment was rested upon the desire and the practicality of getting a new chief.
What has happened? An attempt was made to get Rasebolai made chief, but it failed in successive kgotlas. Whether


or not that is regarded as proof of the cementing of the Tribe I leave the House to decide. The Tribe would not and will not select a new chief, and I am told by those with more experience than I have of these matters that there is no case known to anthropologists where tribes have been induced from outside, against their will, to select a new chief while their present chief is alive. Whether those anthropologists are right or wrong, or I am representing them rightly or wrongly, the fact is that today we are faced with the collapse of that policy.
The hon. Member may say that something has happened which is even better than the selection of a new chief, namely, the fact that we have a new Native Authority. But the outcome is not as predicted by the Government. The reason why I go into this matter is to show that my hon. and right hon. Friends, in making their proposal for a conference, are really coming to the rescue of the Government and are not merely reviving a problem that was already dead. This is a live problem, and my hon. Friends are being very constructive in their approach to it. It may be asked why it matters whether the Bamangwato Tribe is in these difficulties. I do not think that anyone looking at Africa today need look very far for an answer to that question.
It may be argued—in fact, I am not sure that it was not argued in this debate—as proof of the fact that everything was all right in the Reserve, that there has been no violence. What sort of a state are we in if, when there is violence, we are told that we must have law and order and, when there is no violence, that everything is all right and the tribe has now settled down? I believe that the supporters of Seretse Khama in the Bamangwato Reserve have shown remarkable restraint in this matter, and a wisdom in pressing their claims as best they can without violence. The Government cannot have it both ways and say that when nothing happens everything is all right and, when something is happening, that nothing will be done until the something that is happening stops happening. That is the logic of the Tory policy.
The second reason why this is important is that there must be constitutional advance among the Bamangwato. I wish to say a word, which some of my hon. Friends may think a little critical, about

this approach to the problem of African chieftainship. It is often argued that good Socialists should never be in favour of chiefs, but of district councils, local authorities, Labour groups and all that. I hope that no one will think that I am in favour of chiefs. Seretse Khama and I are related in a curious way—he wants to be a chief and I do not want to be a chief. I do not believe in Mau Mau or witchcraft or Letters Patent, or the things that go on in the oath-taking ceremony in another place. I am a passionate democrat and I want to remain "Mr. Benn".
But when we are dealing with an African tribe, we must deal with them on the terms of their own native law and customs, and not by what I choose to call the "nanny" approach to backward people. The idea that they must be shepherded along because, "nanny knows best" is the sort of approach which leads to loss of face and the difficulties which surrounded the Kabaka decision. I put it seriously to the House that we must attempt to get a settlement which will find a response in the hearts and minds of the members of the Tribe.
There are other reasons why this is important and I mention only one briefly, because it must be in the minds of hon. Members. It is the presence of South Africa to the south and the Central African Federation to the north. After all, the South African Government are bringing constant pressure on the British Government to net the so-called pledge—I do not accept it as a pledge—in the South African Act implemented with regard to the transfer of these Territories. It greatly strengthens their claim if they can point to territories and say that there is no settlement there, and they can do that with regard to the Bamangwato Reserve.
I was depressed and surprised when I saw that Mr. Garfield Todd, the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, supported the claim of the Union to these three High Commission Territories, and if we are to justify our status and position there we must do a great deal more for the people. It is not possible to do it so far as the Bamangwato is concerned without the return of Seretse Khama.
I wish to say a word about the idea of the conference suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly. I


wish to ask him a question, because I think that by an oversight he forgot to mention this. He was urging a conference on the Government now. Am I right in supposing that it is his view that, when returned, the Labour Government would bring about a conference?

Mr. J. Griffiths: indicated assent.

Mr. Benn: My right hon. Friend has indicated assent and I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) will refer to this later.
This conference is to decide the conditions under which Seretse Khama returns and not to decide whether he is to return. The view of my right hon. Friend—I know I am representing it fairly—is that the return of Seretse Khama to the Reserve is not a matter to be discussed any more. I think that this is a vital point to get on the record. The view of my right hon. Friend and the party, as understood by myself and others, is that the return of Seretse Khama is something which is now the policy of the Labour Party.
If we take the two extremes, Seretse Khama can return either as a private citizen subject even to the limits to which Tshekedi is subject, or as a full tradition chief. It is to settle this that the conference is to be called and I think it very important that this should be properly understood. I know of no disagreement at all with those who are eloquent about the need to bring Tshekedi and Seretse together within the Tribe. I believe that it can be done and that the conference is the only way to do it. Without a conference it would be impossible. Therefore, I am delighted that my right hon. Friend and the party have now given these twin pledges about the return of Seretse and the conference to settle the future constitution of the Reserve.
I would finish on that but for the obvious point that the Seretse Khama case is more than just a trouble in one area of the Colonial Empire. It is more, and it is bound to be more, than just one issue, one constitutional teaser, to which we all turn our minds, one issue of debate between the two sides of the House. It is more than that because of the mixed marriage. It is because of this mixed marriage of white and black, particularly at such a high level as that of a chief in

Africa, and the fact that the mixed marriage challenges the whole basis of apartheid, that the Seretse case gets support.
If I were to mention the name of Miss Lucy in this House every hon. Member would know who I meant. It is not just a case of a girl going into a university, which is not of any particular interest, but a case which is the symbol of the fight of the United States Supreme Court to get people accepted in universities in the south of the United States, regardless of colour. Miss Lucy is not only discussed in Tuscaloosa or in Alabama, or just in the United States; she is debated and discussed wherever intelligent thinking people meet in any part of the world. So it is with Seretse Khama. Wherever one goes, the name of Seretse Khama is known.
It is a blot on this country that he should be excluded. The decision of the Labour Party that he should return to his own country is a great landmark in the struggle for human rights and is of symbolic importance. Now that the case has been reopened I am confident that it will finally be put right. The Government could not get a settlement for four years when the Labour view was not clear. Now it is obvious to everybody here that the only settlement lies in bringing together all the talent in the Tribe and asking its people to work together for their future and that of the Continent of Africa.

9.53 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I would like to say a word in support of the proposition put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths). The proposal which we are making springs out of the original decision taken by the Labour Government in March, 1950, with which I was associated, which has inevitably since then been a matter of great controversy, and about which no one who was associated with that decision could be wholly happy. I do not want to go over the whole thing again tonight. I still think, balancing, as one had to, extremely difficult considerations, that it was the right decision at the time.
We must be clear what that decision was. There was little chance of a peaceful settlement to the disputed succession to the chieftainship at that time. In the


High Commission Territories, because of their special relationship to the Union of South Africa, any failure of government or breakdown of order is terribly dangerous. We had reason to hope from our knowledge of the situation that, given a certain amount of time, the possibility of a peaceful settlement would very greatly increase. It was, therefore, a decision to suspend Seretse Khama for five years.
The Labour Government never intended this to be a permanent policy. The policy was to be reviewed—this was an integral part of the decision which we then took—in five years. There were many reasons why it was necessary to make this a temporary and not a permanent policy because, of course, very-great disadvantages attached to the decision. It was quite clear that the Tribe was not going to settle down until it could determine this matter for itself.
It was also quite clear, as many hon. Members have pointed out this evening, that the economic development of the area, of the Tribe, and to some extent of the entire Protectorate—because a great deal of the minerals of the Protectorate lie in this tribal area—could not go forward until this matter had been settled. It was for that reason that we very greatly opposed the decision of the present Government in March, 1952, to make the exile of Seretse Khama permanent.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) has just said, that created a new situation and, in our view, it was a very grave error. We divided against it, opposed it and refused to be bound by it. Now we feel that the time has come, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway), for the Government to reconsider the exile of Seretse Khama.
The reasons we think that that is so are, first, that the five-year term we originally set is up; it is now a little more than up. Secondly, the disadvantages of a failure to settle this matter are at least as grave, and in some respects graver, than they were at the time when we had to weigh them in taking our decision. The economic disadvantages are greater now than they were then because there has been a geological survey.
In reply to the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin), I would say

that it was not as thorough as it could be. One can always make them more thorough, but it was thorough enough to show that there are very good prospects of mineral develpment in the Protectorate. Therefore, the economic disadvantages are much greater, because one cannot get these things settled until the tribe will agree.
Thirdly, there is now, in our view, clear evidence that there is a much better chance of a peaceful settlement of this dispute in the Tribe. There still are differences As my hon. Friend said, we must face them realistically. It is no good pretending that there are not problems there and problems which we have to face. There are still differences in the Tribe about the heir and succession. Therefore, we feel that because the arguments for looking at this again are now so great, because there are still differences—although, as we believe, they are much less great, or sharp, or bitter differences than there were five years ago—we have come to the conclusion that the only logical way out of this difficulty is to propose the conference which we have proposed.
The hon. and gallant Member for Haltemprice (Major Wall), in an extremely able, important and valuable speech, said that it might be difficult to fix the composition of that conference. I do not think that that is a very good point against this proposal. After all, there are organs there from which one can get opinion, even as things are in the Protectorate and the Tribe. There is the African Advisory Council, there is the kgotla and it is known who have views on these matters and who are important, responsible, and leading people in the Tribe.
I would not object in principle to the alternative idea of the hon. and gallant Member of some sort of representative council, but, in practice, it would take such a long time to get that going and I am not sure that one could get it going without settling the matter which the conference itself would have to settle. Although I am not against his proposal in principle, I think that our proposal has great practical advantages over it while his proposal has certain theoretical advantages over ours.
As I see it, this conference would, naturally, have to discuss the terms and


conditions of the return of Seretse. Although I agree that at this stage we must not attempt to lay down an agenda, I hope it would also discuss the democratic development of the Tribe, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), with whom I agree very much that perhaps those two points are connected.
Perhaps the progress one could make in agreement with the representatives of the Tribe in the development of representative organs or councils, whatever they may be, may help to get a solution of the succession problem, because the consequences of the succession and the powers which would go with it would be affected by what we did in the development of democratic organs. I use a neutral term.
Any Government that came to this decision and held such a conference would have to be guided by the decision reached at that conference. One cannot ever be sure of anything, but I am almost sure that such a conference would produce agreement. It might take a bit of thrashing out, and a bit of talking and compromise, and a bit of time, but I think it would produce agreement, and would produce what various hon. Members have mentioned as being so important—and I agree with them—a reconciliation between the uncle and the nephew.
I would urge upon the Under-Secretary of State to consider the point—in addition to the arguments which we have all been using—that this is now really bound to come. The Government are not the only factor in this. The Opposition of the day, too, is a factor. They have to take a responsible attitude to this, because, however much we may argue as to when it will happen, at some time the Opposition are bound to become the Government of the day, and this is a statement of our policy as a Government, when we become a Government.
The Opposition, having done two things, having refused to accept making permanent Seretse Khama's exile in March, 1952, and having now put forward this demand for a meeting or conference of leaders, mean that there cannot conceivably be settlement in the Tribe without this meeting coming about. Knowing that it is to come one day, the Tribe will not accept a settlement there without it. I beg the

Government to pay attention to this consideration. It means that every minute, every hour, every month and every year that they put off the decision, they are wasting time. There will not be a settlement now without the sort of conference which we propose. It is, therefore, really better that it should take place soon, and that the Government should abandon their barren and hopeless policy of a permanent exile without any further consideration or consultation with the leaders of the Tribe.
I urge that the Secretary of State ought now to decide to summon this meeting. and I think that he should preside over it himself and should do his utmost to get the sort of settlement that we believe, with all the evidence which we have—and my right hon. Friend has explained the evidence; it is not just hearsay evidence, but first-hand—would follow. Such a policy would have the immense merit of letting the Tribe itself take into its own hands the final settlement of what has been, from the very beginning, a very unhappy affair.

10.3 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Commander Allan Noble): This has been a fairly wide debate, and I certainly would not complain, because, as the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) has said, this matter has not been debated here for some years. I will do my best to answer the main points that have been raised.
The debate was opened very fairly, I think, by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), and I should like to thank him, if I may, for the courteous way in which he discussed with me the arrangement of this debate. I am very grateful also to the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) for having told me earlier that she was to raise much wider subjects. Perhaps I might say that I am very glad that she was unable to do so.
I am very pleased that the Leader of the Liberal Party was able to take part. We all know the great interest which he has taken in this subject over some years. He has told me that he was unable to stay later tonight. Perhaps, in passing, I might support what my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin) said about backing up the Europeans who


work in the Reserve. They do a great deal of work and are, I think, a considerable help to the Africans themselves.
The background to this discussion tonight has been gone into by quite a number of speakers, first, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly, and then by my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Beresford Craddock); and other hon. Members have filled in bits here and there. If the debate had not gone on for quite so long, I should have liked to have tried to summarise it, because I think that, from time to time, we did take some short cuts; but I do not think it would be the wish of the House that I should do that now.
Before I deal with the general debate, may I add my word of praise of Tshekedi Khama? All of us know that he was Regent for many years, and we know what a forceful and enlightened person he is. I am very glad to have met him on two occasions during the past few days. We all recognise the great service which he did as Regent, not only to the Bamangwato Tribe but to the Bechuanaland Protectorate as a whole.
The right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) criticised our action in 1952. We think that the decision of the Government in 1952 followed logically from the White Paper of 1950, because the hopes expressed in that White Paper did not come true. In fact, because the Socialist Government did not take the final decision, the Reserve did not settle down; and because we did take the final decision, the Reserve is now settling down. I hope to be able to give some facts and figures to show that that is indeed true.
The main proposal put forward by the Opposition tonight is that there should be a round-table conference, to which Tshekedi, Seretse, Rasebolai and other tribal leaders should be invited. I gather that that conference should try to find a chief acceptable to the whole tribe, or indeed any other solution. I think that the hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) was expressing only her own view when she said that the Labour Party, if it was returned to power, would immediately send Seretse back as chief. I do not think I understood that from what was said by the official spokesman on the Labour Front Bench.

Mr. Benn: Since none of my right hon. Friends have intervened, may I say that the conference when called would surely not be to pick a new chief? There is no question of calling this conference to find a chief other than Seretse; the question is what his powers are to be.

Commander Noble: I did not understand that from the right hon. Member for Llanelly who opened the debate. It may, of course, be the view of the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). I shall go into that proposal in detail in a few minutes.
I should like the House to look at the position in the Reserve, and see what changes there have been in the last few years, because my information is very different from what has been put forward tonight from the other side of the House. When I became Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations at the end of last year, I turned first to those areas where the Secretary of State has direct administrative responsibility, which, of course, are the Protectorates; and I turned to the Seretse problem in particular. I found that considerable progress was being made in the area, although I will admit, as hon. Members have said, that there is still a lot to be done. Nevertheless, there is undoubted progress going on there month by month. In the Bamangwato Reserve in particular, there is much encouraging evidence of steady progress towards the restoration of stable conditions and of progress both in economic improvement and in the social services.
To turn to the African Authority, Rasebolai, there has been no doubt about the growing stability and efficiency of the administration. He has steadily consolidated his position since his appointment in 1953. All those who are in a position to judge will confirm that he is steadily winning the respect and confidence of his tribe. I do feel that those who have said to the contrary were grossly exaggerating the difficulties of the position.
Not only has he been able to win its confidence in matters concerning the day-to-day administration of its affairs, but he has also made some progress—and I know this will interest the House because nearly every right hon. and hon. Member who spoke mentioned it—with a scheme for the formation of advisory councils at


the headquarters of his Subordinate African Authorities. I hope that by the end of this year Rasebolai will have succeeded in laying the foundation of a system of councils—and I think that is what the House would wish—which for the first time will give the Allied Tribes in the Reserve some real say in the conduct of their affairs.

Mrs. White: The phrase "advisory council" was used. Are these councils not to have any executive power whatever?

Commander Noble: These councils will start off with two-thirds elected and one-third nominated members, and will, in the first place, be of an advisory nature. The hon. Lady will agree that matters do move slowly in this Reserve, and I do not think that we want to go too fast. The fact that Rasebolai has set up these councils is, in my opinion, a very important step forward.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Could the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us whether the structure of these councils has already been decided, and, if not, will he in due course—perhaps even tonight—let the House know? There is an immense amount of experience in building up representative institutions in the Colonial Territories. Are they to be on the model of the beginnings of representative government, moving towards fuller government?

Commander Noble: I would not wish to go further on this matter tonight, but if the right hon. Gentleman would like that information, I will obtain it and inform him on another occasion. It is an important step forward that these councils are now going ahead.
From the economic angle, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to suggest that there was economic stagnation in the area. I do not believe that that is so. As I think the House knows, more than £500,000 has been allocated for the development of new water supplies in the Protectorate, and hon. Members will know from the White Paper published last year that there are new plans for opening up an additional 10,000 square miles of new grazing in the western parts of the Reserve. This will have a tremendous effect, with the simultaneous development of the new abattoir, in encouraging the Africans to increase their turnover of cattle.

Mr. Gordon Walker: I am very glad the hon. and gallant Gentleman has pointed that out, because it is perhaps under-rated by some of my hon. Friends, but our main point is that until there is a settlement of the whole tribal position and the chieftainship position, we shall not get agreement about concessions for major mineral developments.

Commander Noble: I shall answer that point in due course, but I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman.
I was talking about the additional grazing land which will improve the herds of cattle and will be of great importance. As a result of the grant-in-aid from the British Treasury, programmes for the expansion of the social services and the strengthening of the administration have been made possible. The agricultural, veterinary and medical departments all have comprehensive plans of development for the period up to 1960, and again the Bamangwato Reserve will have its share in all those new developments.
Perhaps I might mention, since the hon. Lady for Flint, East mentioned it, that education in Bechuanaland is going ahead. The Moeng school is being extended and that will help in African education. Perhaps in this connection I might say that school attendance in the Reserve, which I think is a sign of settled conditions, is higher than at any time since Seretse left. Another example is that tax collections last year were higher than ever before. That may be a strange illustration to give, but it does show that there is prosperity and indeed settled conditions.
I think that that is an encouraging picture, but the hon. Member for Eton and Slough, whom I am glad to see back in his place, has during the last seven months during which I have held my present office been asking in the House a succession of Questions which seem to imply victimisation and savagery in the Reserve, and the hon. Gentleman referred to that again tonight. He has alleged in supplementary questions that such things are due to the absence of Seretse and the agitation for his return. I do not agree with him, and, even at this late hour, perhaps I may deal with one or two of those allegations.
The hon. Member has suggested, for example, that the present African


Authority and its Subordinate Authorities have singled out the supporters of Seretse for specially oppressive treatment. I can positively say, after most careful inquiries, that there is no foundation whatever for these allegations. Nor is there any suggestion that the relationship between the British officers in the Reserve and the inhabitants are in any way open to criticism.
It is true that in some of the more remote areas where one Subordinate Native Authority may have to maintain law and order in an area about the size of an English county, rough and ready measures sometimes have to be adopted. Neither do I think that it is at all unreasonable—this is another point that the hon. Member has often raised—that people awaiting trial or having to be held for any reason in places where there are no lock-ups should be tied to some heavy movable object. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough has raised with me at Question Time cases of people being tied for the night to lion traps. He rather ridiculed me on one occasion when I said I hoped that in making that statement he was not suggesting that the lion trap was being used as such at the time. These meanings are read into such questions, and the hon. Member should be more careful when launching out in that sort of question without giving me a chance properly to reply.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: May I make two points? When I have suggested that head-men, sub-chiefs or native representatives have been deposed or removed from their position I have suggested that it was because they were supporters of Seretse Khama and have participated in the campaign of non-co-operation. When I have drawn attention to the conditions under which prisoners have been confined, whether in cells with cement floors or tied to poles or to lion traps, I have not meant that they were in that position because they were supporters of Seretse Khama. All I have meant is that the Government have not had the best administrators, because the supporters of Seretse Khama have been adopting the attitude of non-co-operation.

Commander Noble: In answer to the hon. Member's second speech, I would say that I think that in the absence of lock-ups the use of those objects is necessary. I do not think the House will dis-

agree with us if we try to build schools and dispensaries before lock-ups.
Another point upon which I wish to answer the hon. Member concerns the flogging of school children in public places. The children had been on a school outing and had got intoxicated and behaved in an unruly manner on the return journey. The schoolmaster wished to expel them but the Native Authority thought that a caning would probably have less damaging effect on the children's future generally. I think it was a very sensible decision.
When the hon. Member for Eton and Slough refers to flogging, I should point out that it is only a few strokes with a light cane, as might well be used at certain educational establishments in his own constituency.

Mr. Brockway: If there is no reason why this whipping should occur, why did the hon. and gallant Member himself take the decision, as a result of my raising this matter, to give instructions that this whipping in public places should not take place?

Commander Noble: I do not think I have said that I have given those instructions. I think it was the whipping of women—

Mr. Brockway: And subsequently children.

Commander Noble: This was a rather exceptional case. The headmaster wanted to do one thing, whereas the Native Authority—wisely, I think—did the other.

Mr. Benn: Why? Do they whip women at Roedean?

Commander Noble: The hon. Member for Eton and Slough is a little unfair to exaggerate these matters. It makes it very difficult for the Administration on the spot if matters are raised here and are not raised there. There is no doubt that publicity over here only adds to the ammunition of the few extreme partisans there are in the area.
Many hon. and right hon. Gentlemen have mentioned mineral development. I have some good news about that. The African Authority, after long and careful discussion in kgotla, has announced his decision in favour of mineral development. Indeed, there is general agreement in the tribe that it is desirable,


and those who oppose it do so on the ground that no decision shall be taken until a chief has been appointed. I shall come back to that point in a minute or two. The African Authority has all the powers of a chief in this matter and there is, therefore, no basis in law for the suggestion that he lacks the authority.

Mr. J. Griffiths: This is rather important. When the hon. and gallant Gentleman says that the African Authority has consented, I presume he is referring to Rasebolai.

Commander Noble: Yes.

Mr. Griffiths: He has been appointed by the Government and the Administration, not by the people.

Commander Noble: May I finish this part of my speech?

Mr. Griffiths: I am putting a point to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. It needs clearing up. Is it not implicit in the Protectorate status that the consent of the tribe, not of any authority, must be obtained before this can proceed?

Commander Noble: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman can have heard what I said. I said there is general agreement in the tribe that it is desirable. I think that when I have finished this part of my speech I shall have cleared up the query which the right hon. Gentleman has in mind.
It may be that there is in the tribe a general fear that mineral rights may be given on terms which disregard the true interests of the tribe, and I recognise that some members of the tribe may entertain such a fear, but I can assure the House that there is no justification for that whatsoever. I think that what I am saying makes that quite clear. I apologise for reading this in detail, but I think it is important.
The Resident Commissioner has already had a full discussion with chiefs and African Authorities on this subject. He has explained that the Administration intend to bring together the representatives of all the tribes and of the company which is interested in mineral development in Bechuanaland, and he has promised that before then the chiefs will be consulted about the line to be taken at the conference. I think that is an important step. He has assured them that no commitments have been or will be entered into without their knowledge, and

that they will be free to decline to negotiate, if they so wish. Indeed, he has explained to them that any agreement entered into without the written consent of the chiefs and African representatives, as owners of mineral rights in the Reserves, would be invalid under Bechuanaland law.
I understand that the chiefs are very satisfied with those assurances, and that they are anxious that mineral prospecting and development should take place as soon as possible. I can assure the House that it is the firm intention of the Government that no mineral rights shall be given in the tribal reserves which do not fully protect the interests of the tribes and—let me repeat—which do not have the consent of the tribal authorities.
This is an important point. In the Bamangwato Tribe there may be a desire for senior representatives of the House of Khama at present in the Reserve to be associated with any agreement which is eventually negotiated to the point of signature. If that is the wish of the tribe, the Administration are anxious that custom should be preserved, and will consider how this can best be done.
I would not wish to go further on that tonight, but I think that answers the question which was raised.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I recognise that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will have made an important statement like that with great care, but on the last point he made there is a very important question which I want to ask, for I want to know what it means. He is now suggesting that a representative of the Khama family must be associated with the final decision. Presumably the hon. and gallant Gentleman is referring to Tshekedi Khama or some other member of the family. Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that this adds strength to the view which we have repeatedly put, that until the question of the future of the chieftainship, and in particular of the position of Seretse Khama, is settled, this question of the development of mineral rights will not be satisfactorily settled?

Commander Noble: No, I do not think so at all. I particularly made that point, and I realised that the right hon. Gentleman would probably look at it in that light.

Mr. Griffiths: What, then, does it mean?

Commander Noble: It means that if. after the chiefs and the tribal leaders have negotiated this agreement, they would like to have a Khama signature on the document, we will consider their request. That is exactly what it means, and it is, I think, quite a fair answer.
I should not like to leave this subject without making it clear that mineral development, properly controlled to safeguard the true interest of the tribes, will be of the greatest benefit to the African inhabitants of Bechuanaland. Indeed, I believe that all hon. Members who have spoken tonight take that view.
To sum up this point about mineral development, the people as a whole want it; the evidence shows that it will bring great benefits to them; and the Administration are determined to see that it is properly controlled and only brought about with the agreement of the tribes. There is one other very important point about it. It will give the young men of the tribes opportunities to obtain industrial employment near their homes.

Mrs. White: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us whether there will be any public participation in this mineral development either through the Colonial Development Corporation or otherwise? Is the principle of some public participation, as in Uganda, for instance, to be observed in the Protectorate?

Commander Noble: These negotiations, of course, are in an early stage, but my information is that this would be a mineral concession such as is given in other territories, but it would be given by the tribes themselves and not by the Administration.

Mr. Benn: I am very sorry to interrupt the hon. and gallant Gentleman again, but I should like him to clear up this question of the name of Khama being attached to the document. This is really a matter of the very greatest importance, and I hope that the Minister will not leave it just with the words that he has used. Are we to understand that the tribe's acceptance of mineral concession involves the use of a Khama signature without the settlement of the chieftainship?

Commander Noble: No, that is not what I said. I said that if the tribe wished to have a Khama signature as well we would consider the matter and see how

best to do it. That is exactly what I said and exactly what I meant to say.
Against the background of what I have just said about the Administration and the economic position today, I would ask the House to look at the request made by the Opposition for a round-table conference and to consider what, in fact, such a conference might achieve. The advice available to Her Majesty's Government shows that Seretse, his wife and his children would not be acceptable to the tribe as a whole as chief, chief's wife and next in line for succession. I have heard nothing to make me think that this advice is not well founded.
So far as I am aware, there is no other person acceptable at present as chief. There is no doubt that such a conference as proposed by the Opposition would stir up once again all the personal animosities and feuds which have now died down. If the conference failed, it would, I think, do far more harm than good. Personally, I cannot see any need for it. I repeat that it would unsettle the tribe, and, if the conference failed, it would do very great harm.
In our view, the supreme need is for a period of quiet and peaceful development—I think that over the last few years that has paid dividends—to enable the tribe to regain its unity. I earnestly ask all right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House to co-operate in giving the tribe an opportunity to forget its differences and to forge a new unity.
There is, of course, no question of the permanent banishment of Seretse. When a chief has been securely established, the present Government will be ready to give sympathetic consideration to his eventual return as a private citizen. Let us strive to bring that day nearer by helping to heal old wounds and by giving the present African authority and his Administration a chance to prove their worth.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Before the hon. and gallant Gentleman sits down, may I say that I realise that he has used words carefully but that other hon. Members and myself are still confused about his use of the name Khama. I reaffirm the proposal which we have put forward because it is a constructive proposal and the only one which, we think, will arrive at a settlement. The position as the hon. and gallant Gentleman has stated it has been left very obscure.

DAY NURSERIES (MILK)

10.31 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: Earlier today my right hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) asked the Lord Privy Seal whether he would consider the withdrawal of the Welfare Foods (Great Britain) Amendment Order, 1956, which reduces the amount of milk which can be provided in nursery schools. While making it clear that he was speaking without prejudice, the right hon. Gentleman indicated that he would review this matter. For that reason, I wish to take this opportunity of saying briefly why we think that the Government should withdraw the Order.
I should say at once that we are not complaining that this Order has been laid without notice. The Parliamentary Secretary will appreciate that on several occasions, in anticipation, I have complained of the actions which the Government intended to take. For some time the Government have said that they would do this, we have complained and our complaints have not been properly considered. We take this opportunity once more to impress on the Government how wrong their action will be.
We could, of course, have prayed against the Order, and if it is not withdrawn we shall do so in due course, but we have always endeavoured to meet the convenience of the House in putting down Prayers and at this time of the Session it is not easy, without inconvenience to the House, to debate a Prayer, particularly in view of the new procedure affecting Prayers. I should like the Government to reconsider the position and themselves to withdraw the Order. If the Order is not withdrawn we shall pray against it, but I hope that they will relieve us of this burden by themselves withdrawing the Order.
We are disturbed about the policy being pursued by the Government about milk. We were very disturbed the other night, when we were complaining of the increase in the retail price, to hear the hon. Member for Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) say that the present price of milk was too cheap. We know that these things

are not said inadvertently, and that this was to prepare the ground for a further attempt to reduce the consumption of milk.
We think that this is very unfortunate. I am obliged to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for his attendance tonight, but I was very disturbed by what he said in that debate about prices. He indicated that prices charged should be proper prices, and I took the point that he appeared to mean that he was being critical of welfare foods generally. We all concede that they do not bear the proper price. We raised the point in the debate and I must say that we did not get a satisfactory reply.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Harmar Nicholls): The hon. Member will see in the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debate that I specifically excluded the welfare foods. I quoted them as foods on which we took into account the special considerations which flow from them. That is on the record.

Mr. Willey: I mentioned the matter to afford the Parliamentary Secretary an opportunity to clear it up, but that was the impression which he conveyed to the House. When I made that intervention, the retort of the Parliamentary Secretary was that both investment and consumers should play their part in bringing back stability. He did not say that the Government would not in any circumstances attempt to economise at the expense of welfare foods and the Order shows that the Government are prepared so to economise.
Let us see what the position is. In spite of all their pledges, in spite of all their undertakings, the Government have removed practically all the consumer subsidies—I see that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury agrees. Having done that—and those subsidies will shortly be entirely withdrawn—the Government begin to attack the welfare foods and that is very disturbing.
Let us consider in what manner the Government begin to attack welfare foods. They start economising in a very mean and petty way. I do not want to deal with the merits of the case, because


if the Order is withdrawn we shall be satisfied. I do not want to say anything which might prejudice the Lord Privy Seal in his reconsideration of the matter, but I have expressed these views before and I repeat them. This is a mean and shabby economy.
It is a very small economy, because the number of children who go to nursery schools is very small. This is economising to the extent of one-third of a pint of milk a day for each of the children. Who are these children? By and large, they are the most unfortunately placed of all children. They are the children without fathers, the children of widows who are obliged to work, the children of mothers without husbands. To maintain the family, the mother has to work, and to be able to work she has to send the children to a nursery school.
It is not fitting that the Government should economise in this way, particularly when there is only a small saving. If the Government are prepared to make this economy, how much further are they prepared to go? I am obliged to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health for being here, but I hope that she will not justify the Order and turn down our request.
I know that the reason the Order is dated 1st September is to cover the beginning of the new school year. I know the administrative argument for the date on which the Order is to come into effect, but I appeal to the hon. Lady to consider that this is such a shabby economy that it would be far better to allow it to be discussed by the House before it is implemented. It would be far better to face some administrative difficulty and ensure that there was a full debate before the Order is implemented, as we are making the charge that we are dissatisfied and disturbed at this first attack on the welfare foods.
I do not wish to say anything more about the merits of the Order because, as I have indicated, we will put down a Prayer against it if the Government persist in their present attitude, and if it is withdrawn we will be well satisfied. Least said; soonest mended. But in view of the case I have briefly made out, in view of the fact that this will be an economy made at the expense of people least able

to bear it—people for whom we all ought to have some sympathy, and whom we cannot disregard merely upon grounds of administrative tidiness, I hope that the Government will think again. I know the arguments which can be raised about this being untidy, and that these poor children should not have any particular advantage, but these children are suffering every disadvantage by reason of the circumstances which are taking them to the nursery schools.
I hope that, as one of the last things this Government do before the Recess, they will, by withdrawing the Order, afford us the comfort of being assured that our fears are misplaced and that, in any case, whatever economies we are driven to, the Government will not make such mean, petty and shabby economies as this.

10.42 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): The hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) has, in a way, taken over a matter which was raised by his right hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) with my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. He very fairly said that the Opposition were aware of these proposals because they had been mentioned in previous debates, and were the subject of an Oral Question and Answer on 16th July, when my right hon. Friend said that the Order would come into operation on 1st September. The hon. Member also raised other points which were rather wide of this Order, and I shall therefore limit myself to the question of the welfare foods and the reduction from two-thirds to one-third of a pint in the milk supplied each day to children in nursery schools.
He implied that we were going to cause some hardship to those children, and that that was unfair and would be harmful to the very limited number of children in those day nurseries. He did not go quite so far as to suggest—although he rather implied—that they would suffer a nutritional hardship. We cannot consider this question in isolation; we have to remember that every child under five years of age—about 3½ million in all—gets one pint of milk a day for 1½d. and, as my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture,


Fisheries and Food said recently in debate, that is in no way altered by the reduction in the subsidy in respect of the general sale of milk.
Therefore, the pint of milk a day that is available at l½d.—that is, l0½d. a week—will be covered by the family allowance, and the family allowance could not be applied to anything better than buying milk for these children. They have that pint and in addition the very limited number of children in the day nurseries will have an extra one-third of a pint free. I noticed that the hon. Member was very careful not to state that there was any suggestion of these children being deprived of a proper and adequate nutritional diet. The pint which they get, and the additional one-third of a pint they will get in the nurseries, is a fully adequate supply for those children as a daily intake of milk.
I do not think that we should get this matter out of perspective. The fact that there may be widows who have to take jobs and put their children in day nurseries must be weighed against the fact that there are large families where the breadwinners do not have a tremendously large income but where milk has to be provided just the same. The Order applies to private and day nurseries, and the local authorities can make charges in these day nurseries which can be decreased or waived altogether in cases of hardship. If a local authority feels that there is a special need, because of malnutrition, it can augment the supply, but no one can suggest that the one and one-third pints which are provided are indaquate for any child in the under-five group who might be in a day nursery.
As the hon. Member said, the Order affects only a few children. There are 3½ million children under the age of five. Of that number only 22,000 are in local authority day nurseries and 7,000 of these are under 2 years old. There are 15,000 between 2 and 5. Approximately 9,000 to 10,000 children are in private day nurseries. To that extent the children are receiving an additional allowance of welfare milk compared with the rest of the children in the country. We do not believe that on nutritional grounds there is a strong case against the pint at home and the one-third of a pint to be supplied in the day nurseries. This is, moreover,

in line with the policy of the Ministry of Education under which one-third of a pint is being supplied in schools.
I do not think that the hon. Member wishes to suggest that this will jeopardise the welfare of these children. If there are any extreme cases, the local authorities have means whereby they can be met. I think it fair to point out that when the two-thirds of a pint of milk was introduced in the day schools it was war-time and there was stringent rationing. The amount of other foods available was very limited. There was not so much of the other protein and body-building foods available as there is today. The need for milk for children had precedence over any other type of food. There were then less butter and fewer eggs available, while now all types of food are far more easily available than they were during the wartime and in the years immediately after the war. With the nursery two-thirds of a pint, with the wide diversity of bodybuilding foods available and the welfare pint of milk available at the cheap rate of l½d., we do not think it necessary to maintain the additional two-thirds of a pint for these children in the day nurseries. Therefore, on behalf of my right hon. Friends the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Health, I must decline to accept the pleadings of the hon. Member that this Order should be withdrawn.

Mr. Willey: The hon. Lady did not mention the Lord Privy Seal. I hope that when she consults him about this she will call his attention to the remarks which I have made as well as to her own remarks, so that he will be in no doubt about our views on the subject.

Miss Hornsby-Smith: With your permission, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I should like to assure the hon. Member that I have been in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. The statements I have made tonight are within the knowledge of my right hon. Friend, and I am sure that he will note the remarks made by the hon. Member.

10.50 p.m.

Mr. W. A. Wilkins: I am sure that my hon. Friends on this side of the House will have been dismayed at the answer given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the plea made by


my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). It is the final act of the petty meannesses which we have had from this Government during this Session.
I am amazed at the defence which the hon. Lady has attempted to put up for the withdrawal of the one-third pint of milk from the children in nursery schools. She mentioned that the milk was first brought into the schools during the war. I would remind her that, although that might have been done by the compulsory requirement of the Government, progressive authorities were encouraging the distribution of milk in schools long before the war. Medical officers of health, certainly in Bristol, were pressing strongly that milk should be provided in schools, and that it should be tuberculin tested, pasteurised milk. I remember the tremendous campaign that we conducted in Bristol to ensure a supply of pasteurised milk for the schools.
In this business the Government are being penny wise and pound foolish. No one will deny the pride of the nation is its children. Some of us can never remember the time when our children looked so fine and healthy as they do today. That may be due in large measure to other foods than milk, but I am certain, from the statistics that we have always had, that milk has played an especial part in the building up of the youth of the nation. To those who still regard the children as the nation's greatest asset, we say that it is against the interests of the nation that welfare foods should be withdrawn.
I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, though here, is saying nothing to us about this matter. I suppose it is at the instigation of that Ministry that this Order has been laid. It is a very retrograde step. I hope that representations will be made to the Minister of Education and to the Minister of Health. I notice that there are three signatories to the Order: the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Secretary of State for Scotland, and, most unfortunately, the Minister of Health. I should have thought that he would oppose it and try to get his colleagues in the Government either not to put the Order forward or to withdraw it.
This is the meanest of mean acts by a Government which promised, at two successive Elections, that they would not make any attack on the social services, and who, ever since, have been ruthlessly attacking them until those Services are practically non-existent.

10.54p.m.

Sir Henry Studholme: It might be as well for us all to remember that the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins) has said that he has never seen the children of this country looking so well as they do now—under a Conservative Government.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins) that this is the meanest Order that has ever been before Parliament. To rob little children of a third of a pint of milk a day is absolutely ridiculous—coming on a day when Sir Bernard Docker has been turned down by his own company, the man who is responsible in the main for this petty act, because he forced the Chancellor to go in for a reduction of expenditure.
I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that if the Government want to look for economies they should look at their own benches, where there are right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who are drawing subsidies from that Ministry, and who are in the Surtax class. There, I suggest, is room for a great reduction in our national expenditure.

10.56 p.m.

Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: I am particularly disturbed that the Secretary of State for Scotland has given his support to this particular action of the Government. I have no wish to argue the case on general economic grounds. The Government are entitled to their own initial premise, or economic precondition, and, given the fact that they must economise—and they are looking for all kinds of economies—it is worth considering whether this particular one is a wise one.
In the context, speaking of Scotland, I say that it is most unwise. We have recently debated the Report of the Department of Health for Scotland, and


in it there is a reference to the nutrition of ordinary people in Scotland, based on the ascertainable economic facts. It is clear that many of our people, particularly in the lower income groups, are not as well off as many other people in the population.
As my hon. Friend, the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mrs. Jean Mann) has ascertained by her inquiries into the recent national surveys, it appears that in at least six of the eight primary nutritional commodities which ordinary people consume they are below par. Many of these commodities are contained in milk, which is Nature's most wonderful food, particularly for growing children.
I would say that the Government have every right, in the context of their own economic arguments, to turn to any measure, provided they do so in the full knowledge of the consequences it will entail. What are the consequences? The consequences can only come on us in the years to come. The hon. Member who spoke about Britain's bonny babies is casting a great deal of praise on past Governments which have managed to sustain the welfare position in this country. After all, it is but twenty years since the then John Boyd Orr, a very well-known man of medicine, brought forward his most damning report, which showed that many people of this country, in 1935, were well below the natural diets which one would expect for people living a happy life.
Strangely enough, in the war we actually led people towards a better kind of diet than they ever had before. This and the subsequent planning and Acts of the Labour Government were the cause of the disappearance of rickets. When I was a medical student it was very difficult to find a case of rickets, to show us exactly what it meant in terms of twisted bones, and so on. Many of our colleagues from other countries, at international meetings, could tell us of cases in their

own countries, where they did not have a sane food policy. The basis of that policy here has been the provision of free or cheap milk for children in all classes.
Surely we should encourage children in the early years of life to have not only ample but excess supplies of milk. Only in that way can we ensure that every child has a reasonable diet in this regard. I have no wish to reflect on the wickedness of the Government. Let people judge that for themselves. But I ask the Government one question: are they quite certain that they are not damaging the welfare of children by allowing this Order to go through? Is this not really a very immoderate and unnecessary imposition in our present economic trials? We all wish to share whatever economic burden may be cast upon us to bring our nation through a difficult time, but are children in nursery schools to pay for that obligation in later life through our failure to provide them with the necessary means to grow in strength of body and limb?

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Robert Crouch: I do not wish to detain the House for more than a moment or two, but I should like to support my hon. Friends in the Order now before the House—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): The Order is not before the House; this is the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 2) Bill.

Mr. Crouch: Milk is a very essential food for the young, but if any food is too cheap we do not appreciate it—[HON MEMBERS: "Oh."] No, it is not appreciated. I realise how much milk helps to build up children to become adequate adults and I think that by this Order we shall find that milk will be more appreciated than it has been in the past.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

POST-WAR CREDITS (INCOME TAX)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wills.]

11.2 p.m.

Mr. William Teeling: The origin of this short Adjournment debate is that a constituent of mine, some months ago, wrote to me complaining about the attitude of Income Tax collectors with regard to a debt of his which amounted to about £15. They were threatening to seize his furniture and sell it, whereas he maintained that he had £45 in post-war credits. He asked, as the Government were not honouring their pledge to pay those credits after the war. why he should be forced to sell his furniture in view of the fact that he had more money in post-war credits than he actually owed the Government.
A Question by me on this subject caused quite a number of letters to reach me from all over the country and I was rather alarmed about the general attitude of Income Tax collectors to small people. I must say, in passing, that, although I know my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has already replied to me in private, when he answered my Question he pointed out that this man had not paid his debt for six years. That gave me and, I think, everyone in the House, the impression that the man had had quite long enough to pay. As hon. Members will know, we get letters from constituents which sometimes do not tell the whole truth and the full story. I felt that perhaps this man had rather let me down and I did not go further with the matter at the moment.
Since then, however, I have seen him and found that, far from the case being that he had not paid for over six years, he had been in Canada and only came back at the end of December. After that, for the first time, to his knowledge, he was informed by the Income Tax people that he owed them this sum from nearly six years before. That, of course, was quite a different story. Because, for what were good reasons, he did not turn up on a day when they asked him to come to see them, they sent him a particularly strong letter.
Others have since written to me on this subject and I was so much impressed by their letters that I have spoken to two or three very prominent chartered accountants who deal with Income Tax matters. They told me that there is no doubt that especially among younger Income Tax collectors a much more highhanded attitude is taken than used to be taken. These accountants have been very clear in stating that that is not at all the case with the older collectors. There seems to be a better tradition among the older generation.
I ask my right hon. Friend to tell us a little of what is done from Whitehall to control Income Tax collectors in different parts of the country, and how far, and in what way, they are trained. I have in my hand several cases, and though I do not want to bother the House with them all I would, if I may, just mention one or two.
There is an official of this House who tells me that he has had some extremely rude letters from the Income Tax people. On one occasion, when he was away ill, he was not able to answer a letter from them. When he came back he found another letter which asked for the information, and added:
Will you please add why you did not reply to our last letter, giving the full reasons? 
Another man writes to say:
This year I was unable to pay the £11 odd demanded but paid £3 on final demand and then later on sent a further cheque for £3, saying that I would pay the balance of £5 at my earliest convenience, and stating, in my ignorance, that I was quite prepared to go to court to request leniency.
To that letter he got the following reply:
Your cheque for £3 is returned herewith. Please amend it to the full balance of £8. I must request that it is returned duly amended within the next seven days or distraint proceedings will be taken. Your reference to going to court is not understood, as the distraint proceedings are taken by a certificated bailiff without reference to any court whatsoever.
That seems to bear out a little of what these chartered accountants have been telling me; that some of the younger people say, "We are the judges," whereas most people have always thought that they were just administrators—certainly not the judges of whether or not people are capable of paying. One occasionally hears of cases in which they


really seem to be wasting their time. Here is one, in particular:
As one of your constituents, 73 years of age, a Boer War and First War veteran, and an old-age pensioner … I wish to bring to your notice an injustice which I have received from the Revenue Department.
On my retirement, in 1948, we went to Canada, came back, and went back there in 1952, returning to this country in 1956. Wishing to settle in Brighton, I purchased the house my brother was living in, as he had had a stroke and was no longer able to maintain it himself. Eventually, the Income Tax people were informed, and started a very ruthless campaign against me and wanted to know where I got the money from, etc. They wanted to know all my history from before I retired. I informed them that I did not think, as my assets were so small and my income so low, that I was taxable. However, after all the hunting and hounding that I endured, it was stated that I was taxable for 11d. per week, which would be stopped from my Army pension and which was starting from 1st April.
On 12th May I received from the Army Pension Paymaster a memorandum and a postal draft for 6s., stating that the figure of 11d. per week was a mistake and that the tax was, in fact, 2d. per week. I was not given any opportunity of paying this tax in a lump sum but was given a coding number and the sum spread over 12 months the same as one would be if in work. If this is the result of the training given to the staff of the Income Tax people to catch the dodgers who evade tax would it not be more profitable to try to catch those … who get away with thousands of pounds instead of wasting their time for the sake of 2d. a week from an old-age pensioner? Two pension draft books and a mass of correspondence and several interviews were incurred for this 2d. per week tax payable over 12 months.
Since then I have had a letter from my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, which says:
For the current year, it was at first thought that … income exceeded his Income Tax allowances, and small tax deductions were therefore being made from his pension. It has now been found that he is entitled to further allowances, and provided there are no changes in his circumstances he will not be liable to pay tax this year. The Army authorities will repay to him the tax which has already been deducted.
One is inclined to think that these officials were possibly wasting their time, and I should like my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to give us some reassurance on these matters. I should like him also to say—I cannot find the information anywhere—whether, when the post-war credits were introduced, or subsequently, they were intended to be applied also in the Colonies and whether

the Dominions have adopted the principle. It would be interesting to know this.
As most people know, post-war credits were started in 1941, when the late Sir Kingsley Wood, in his Budget speech, said that
by providing the small saver with the promise of a substantial nest-egg, we may well increase rather than diminish his desire for adding to it, so that he may have a sum sufficient to enable him to face with further confidence the difficulties of the post-war world."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 7th April, 1941; Vol. 370, c. 1331.]
He then promised that after the war, as from the date when payment began to be made, interest would be paid on the postwar credits. The nest egg is hardly being used as a nest egg and it is difficult to use it as such when one cannot get it. The suggestion was made that people might be encouraged to go in for War Savings Certificates, which, of course, bear interest. It might be suggested that if people cannot be repaid their post-war credits, they could at least be given interest on them.
Governments that followed allowed post-war credits to be used in bits and pieces. Payment was made to men aged 65 and women aged 60, first, in respect of the first three years of the war and then for the following two years. We have had many discussions on the subject and no less than two Adjournment debates, from one of which it is interesting to quote from what was said by Sir Gurney Braithwaite:
When the post-war credit system was introduced, it so happened that I was one of the Members of the House who were somewhat sceptical about what would be likely to happen after the war. I remember asking whether we should have the credits set off against Income Tax arrears. I said I thought that in many cases we would never succeed in touching the cash. That was repudiated by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. We were assured that none of these nefarious practices would happen. But they are happening now under the present Administration. Already, officers who have claims made upon them of debts arising out of their war service are being told that they can be set off against post-war credits. That is already beginning to arise in the Departmental Claims Branch …
I am a great believer in getting back to first principles. The whole conception of post-war credits was that they were a nest-egg for use in the very period through which we are now passing "—
that was in 1947—
the period of post-war reconstruction, but a nest-egg is not much good if you cannot


take advantage of it when you are most hardly pressed financially. The right hon. Gentleman will be in the same difficulty as we are in discussing legislation, but it would be in order for him to say that he will examine the machinery which is open to him, that is Statutory Rules and Orders."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th December, 1947; Vol. 445, c. 2085–6.]
He thought that the matter might be dealt with in that way and asked whether it was possible to set off post-war credits against Income Tax.
I am only suggesting that use of the credits could be allowed in cases where people are really unable for one reason or another to pay their Income Tax—and this can usually be verified by methods such as are used in National Assistance offices; but we could be much more flexible than at present in setting off post-war credits against claims by the Government. I have only just discovered something which happened when the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) was Chancellor of the Exchequer. On reading a debate raised by Mr. Ralph Morley in September, 1951, I see that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, then Financial Secretary to the Treasury, told the House that no less than £20 million was paid by setting it off against Income Tax arrears under the scheme of the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland. If that could be done then, it surely could be done today.
My right hon. Friend was rather horrified when I suggested that the other day at Question time, and asked whether I realised what a colossal amount it would involve, but I do not think it would involve a colossal amount for the purpose I am suggesting. The latest figures, given on 17th May, show that there are 9½ million holders of post-war credits and that the total of the credits is about £523 million. Of course, the £ is not worth anything like what it was worth in the days when that money was put aside. To divide that £523 million among 9½ million people would mean paying about £60 a head.
To repay the credits would be no more than to honour the debt long after the war. I should not be at all surprised if the majority of the people would put the money back into savings. It has been suggested they might put it into Premium Bonds. They most probably would not

blow the payments, as my right hon. Friend no doubts fears. Even if they did. £60 a head is not a colossal amount. Paying of credits as I suggest, for Income Tax, would probably involve no more than a repayment of £4 million or £5 million a year. I hope my right hon. Friend, even if he cannot do anything about the matter now, will bear it in mind for the next Budget.

11.16 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Henry Brooke): My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Teeling) has covered a good deal of ground. I shall do my best to reply to him in the time available. He asked me about post-war credit schemes in the Commonwealth. There was certainly a scheme in Canada. In New Zealand there was a war loan subscription scheme under which taxpayers were required to subscribe for a Government war loan. South Africa had an unusual scheme of its own, a system of special types of savings certificate. Northern Rhodesia had war compulsory savings. Nyasaland had a scheme of post-war credits, and the three Protectorates, Basu-toland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland had each a personal savings fund levy. I should not like to claim that that information is complete, but that is what I have been able to gather in the time available since my hon. Friend was good enough to let me know that he was to raise that question.
At present there are some £517 million of post-war credits outstanding, and the not inconsiderable sum of £283 million in post-war credits has already been repaid. My hon. Friend suggested that perhaps it was time to start paying interest on the unpaid credits. I should think that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to find himself in a position to allocate more money for post-war credits it really would be better to use that to speed up the rate of repayment than to pay interest on those still unpaid.
My hon. Friend has put forward the proposition that in certain circumstances post-war credits might be tendered in payment of tax. I am sure he will realise that to give a general right of that kind would mean that very quickly the greater part of the £500 million or so outstanding would be tendered, and in fact the Exchequer would find itself with £500 million less of revenue coming in, and


the general public would have £500 million more of purchasing power in its pockets. I am not going to guess how all that would be used. It would, of course, go in many different ways. Some of it, no doubt, would go into savings. However, in the present inflationary condition of our economy it really would be quite impossible to take the risk of releasing a sum of that magnitude.
I am not sure whether my hon. Friend has in mind that perhaps it could be done more narrowly, that credits could be released just in cases of hardship. As I have had to explain to the House on many occasions, it seems quite impossible to arrive at any definition of hardship which would effectively draw the line between one holder and another. One cannot possibly leave this to the administrative discretion of the Income Tax staff, some of whom my hon. Friend has himself been criticising. In a moment I will rebut that criticism.
With between 9 million and 10 million individuals involved, it really would be quite impracticable to leave it to the officers of the Inland Revenue to use their own judgment. They could only repay on some principles laid down, and so far it has defied all our efforts to find any form of words that would make sure that those who were suffering hardship were on one side of the line and those who were not were on the other.
My hon. Friend also threw out the suggestion that in certain cases where a man is finding it hard to pay his taxes, or where enforcement action is going to be taken against him, he might be allowed to tender his post-war credits. It would certainly not be equitable to allow that simply in cases where enforcement action is being taken because such action is often taken in cases where people have a lot of resources of their own. If one is thinking of the other type of case where the resources are relatively small, then, again, one is simply raising in another form the question whether payment could be made in cases of hardship.
The main case which my hon. Friend has been concerned to put before the House tonight is that there are a good many people in the employment of the Inland Revenue who are doing their job harshly and are not properly trained for it. I am bound to say that I must rebut absolutely the charge that Income

Tax collectors act harshly to taxpayers of small means. Whether individual taxpayers have large or small means, complaints are made from time to time that harshness is being shown towards them. I do not think it would be right to judge any of those individual cases unless one knew the full facts from both sides.
What interests me is the following fact, and I think this is substantial evidence. It was two years ago last week that I was appointed Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and in that time I have received from right hon. and hon. Members complaints by their constituents on almost every conceivable subject relating to the work of the Treasury, the Customs and the Inland Revenue. I could count almost on the fingers of one hand the number of complaints that I have received through Members of Parliament about alleged harsh behaviour of tax collectors in the case of the small taxpayer of the type whom my hon. Friend has in mind.
I can tell my hon. Friend in all truthfulness that remarkably few complaints of this kind ever come to the head office of the Inland Revenue. If any complaints are sent in, either to head office or elsewhere, they are very thoroughly investigated by senior officers, and any complaint of a serious nature would certainly be investigated at regional level, or possibly at head office as indeed all complaints coming through hon. Members are investigated.
My hon. Friend asked me to explain whether there was any system of training for Income Tax collectors. I am very glad to reply to him on that because I think the information should be known. The Inland Revenue Department has set up a systematic scheme which ensures not only that every new entrant receives a course of training when he joins the tax collection service, but also that as he is promoted he receives instruction in the work which he will be expected to perform in his new grade. A feature of all these courses is the stress laid on the importance of preserving good relations with the taxpayer, and the evidence which I adduced earlier of the few complaints which reach the Board of Inland Revenue does suggest that this training has good effect. It would be quite wrong for me to stand here and say that no one in the Inland Revenue Department ever makes a mistake; but, if mistakes are made, I


am the responsible person, and I will apologise.
I believe, however, that a high standard is maintained, and I will certainly see that any well authenticated complaint is investigated. My hon. Friend referred to one or two individual cases and, as he knows, neither he nor I must mention names; but I am aware of the cases to which he refers. In the first case, £13 10s. was owing, and the taxpayer tendered post-war credits—which in that instance were worth £45. I have explained the reasons why this method is not permissible.
I want to apologise to my hon Friend, and the taxpayer concerned, if any inadvertent words of mine were read in such a way as to suggest that this taxpayer refused payment for six years. That is not true. The amount was ascertained only at the end of 1955, and the taxpayer then offered payment at the rate of £1 a week; but the payment of the instalments was broken off and it was at that stage, after two further letters had been sent to the taxpayer, that the inspector took the step of sending a printed final notice which contained a reference to distraint as a possible means of enforcement.
I should say here that it is Parliament itself which has made available methods of enforcement of payment, such as leave to distrain without a warrant from the magistrates, so that the responsibility is on this House rather than on the collectors. But I hope that the taxpayer concerned will be able to reach a reasonable and amicable arrangement with the collector. Had he replied to the letters no difficulties would have arisen.
Then my hon. Friend referred to another case where an individual said that he had been "hunted and hounded ". What, in fact, happened, was that the collector was trying to ascertain whether that person was liable for tax or not. The collector had to get particulars of that taxpayer's newly acquired property and certain bank interest which he received.

As a result, his liability was worked out at twopence a week. This position is liable to occur in any case where the income of an individual just exceeds the tax-free allowance.
My hon. Friend has suggested that the taxpayer offered to pay a lump sum, but we have no record anywhere of such an offer. I am sure that my hon. Friend appreciates that we cannot write to millions of P.A.Y.E. taxpayers and ask whether they would like to pay in lump sums. The P.A.Y.E. machinery works smoothly. We did not know of any offer to pay until we saw a letter from the taxpayer to my hon. Friend. I must emphasise that the collector was simply doing his duty under the law.
It may be that sometimes people go too far and sometimes do not go far enough, but we in Parliament put on these collectors a statutory duty of collecting Income Tax at the date when it is due, and if tax is left unpaid for a long period after that date and the taxpayer does not seem to be making reasonable efforts to pay, there is a duty on the collector to make a serious effort to get that tax in. It is a duty which he owes to the other taxpayers of the country. If tax is not collected from those who are liable, that is unfair to all the rest of the taxpayers, the vast majority of whom are both honest and punctual in their payments.
I am glad that we have had this short debate. I am always anxious to look into any further cases of this or a similar character brought to my notice, and I hope that my hon. Friend will accept from me that the standard attained by the tax collectors is high and that we are jealous to preserve it.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-nine minutes to Twelve o'clock.